COURT: On 28 June 2013 the defendant, aged 36 now, pleaded guilty in the Magistrates Court to the charge of trafficking in a solid weighing 380 grammes and containing 110 grammes of cocaine. Today he has confirmed his plea and also accepted the Summary of Facts.
The defendant is from Mali but he travelled by air to Hong Kong from Algiers via Doha. After he had been refused permission to land in Hong Kong, he was taken for Customs clearance. Nothing incriminating was found in his baggage but he was suspected to have concealed drugs inside his body. He admitted that he had swallowed pellets, but at that time he made out that he did not know what the pellets were.
In due course, he discharged 33 pellets containing the cocaine which is estimated to be valued at street level at about $390,000.
The defendant said that he was to be paid US$2,000 as a reward after he had passed the drugs over to some man in Macau. The defendant took a huge risk, both to his own health and in terms of the consequences he was likely to face if he was caught.
The sentencing guidelines for heroin in R v Lau Tak Ming & Ors [1992] HKLR 370, as applied to cocaine in the Attorney General v Pedro Nil Rojas [1994] 1 HKC 342, are clear. For between 50 and 200 grammes of cocaine, as Mr Mitchell correctly said, the sentencing bracket is 8 to 12 years’ imprisonment after trial.
For the amount in this case, an appropriate starting point for sentence would seem to be 9½ years’ imprisonment. This was an offence aggravated in terms of its gravity by the fact of importation so that the starting point needs to be enhanced. I consider that a 6-month enhancement would meet the justice of this case bringing the starting point up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Mr Camara, would you stand, please?
You will receive the full benefit of your timely plea of guilty. This means that the sentence you would have received after a contested trial will be cut by one-third.
The sentence is 6 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.