HKSAR v. ERMANSYAH SUGIANTO

HCCC 246/2017

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 246 OF 2017

----------------------------------

----------------------------------

----------------------------------------------

Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

----------------------------------------------

COURT:  Defendant, stand up, please.

By pleading guilty to your offence in the Magistrates’ Court, it is obvious that you accept you that you are well-aware that dangerous drugs were contained in that parcel that you collected. You must be well-aware of the risks you were taking when you agreed to collect that parcel. You will also be well-aware the harm that cocaine causes to drug addicts and to society in general.

Obviously, I have sympathy for your personal family circumstances, but any hardship that your wife and child may suffer as a result of your inevitable imprisonment, is something you yourself have brought on them.

Aggravating your offence are two factors. Firstly that you assisted in the importation of cocaine into Hong Kong. It came from Brazil; and secondly that you are here as an asylum seeker, a Form 8 recognisance holder, and you have abused the hospitality and freedom that Hong Kong has extended to you.

I am sure that Mr Gibson Shaw, your counsel, has told you that there are very clear guidelines laid down for all judges as to how we should sentence people who engage in drug-trafficking, and he will also have told you that we are expected to stick to those guidelines unless there are very good reasons not to do so and there are no very good reasons in your case.

Had you taken this case to trial, had you pleaded not guilty and had you been found guilty by a jury, given the amount of drugs that you trafficked in, which was a total mixture weighing 295 grammes, with an active contents of 234 grammes of cocaine in it, I would have taken a starting point sentence of 12 years and 6 months. And following very clear authority, from the Court of Appeal, I would have enhanced that sentence by 6 months to reflect the international element, and by a further 6 months to reflect the fact that you, as an asylum seeker, have abused Hong Kong’s hospitality, which means that after trial, you would have been looking at a sentence of 13 and a half years’ imprisonment.

However, you do have mitigation. Your most powerful mitigation is that you are realistic. You accepted your wrongdoing, and you pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity the judicial process afforded you, before the Magistrates’ Court, and you are entitled to a one-third deduction from that 13 and a half years’ imprisonment in respect of that. And you also willingly took part in an attempted controlled delivery of the drugs, albeit one that was unsuccessful, and I am satisfied that I should reflect your co-operation by reducing your sentence to reflect that, and I am reducing it by a further 4 months.

Now, had you just had the mitigation of the guilty plea, your sentence would have been one of 9 years’ imprisonment. But because of the fact that you took part in the attempted controlled delivery, there is a further 4 months’ reduction given to you, making your sentence one of 8 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.