By Vir B. Lumicao
A Filipina walked free from the High
Court yesterday, Nov. 14, after being acquitted of drug trafficking, and
of conspiring with three others to commit the crime.
Maricel Thomas was the only one of four
Filipinas who was cleared of all charges of bringing cocaine into Hong
Kong in September last year.
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| The cocaine was found inside the hidden compartment of a hand-carried bag |
Her lawyer managed to convince the jury
that Thomas did not know the person who gave her the bag with cocaine,
and was only enticed to go to Hong Kong at the last minute.
Thomas also had no reason to act as a drug mule as she was getting adequate financial support from her estranged husband.
Shirley Chua, 46, who was arrested with
Thomas at the Hong Kong International Airport on the evening Sept 25,
2015, was found guilty of trafficking in a dangerous drug. She was,
however, cleared of the conspiracy charge.
Thomas and Chua were among four Filipinas
who were tried by a seven-man jury on charges of conspiring to traffic
around 4 kilograms of cocaine into Hong Kong.
All four arrived on the same day aboard Cebu Pacific's last flight from Manila.
The two other Filipinas who were on the
same flight with them, Remelyn Roque and Ana Louella Creus, were found
guilty of the conspiracy to traffic drugs.
Thomas and Chua were arrested at the
airport after Customs officers found four slabs weighing 2.45 kg of a
solid substance containing cocaine from their hand-carried luggage.
Government tests later showed Chua’s luggage had 944 grams of pure cocaine while Thomas’ had 923 grams.
However, Roque and Creus, a 30-year-old
dentist, managed to pass unchallenged through the green, or “nothing to
declare,” lane at the Customs area of the HKIA arrival hall.
But they were arrested as they were about
to board a flight back to Manila two days later. By then, they had
already delivered a bag each to two "black men" at Chung King Mansions
in Tsimshatsui..
Justice Audrey Campbell-Moffat, who presided over the 16-day jury trial, scheduled the sentencing of the three for Jan 18.
The four defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges at the opening of the trial on Nov 6.
But government prosecutor John Wright said they knew they were carrying something illicit in their luggage.
The four lawyers appointed by Legal Aid to represent the four defendants, disputed the conspiracy charge.
But the prosecution said the accused
conspired with a woman named Nora Noora, who met with all four in
Roque’s house in Cavite on Sept 23, 2015 and briefed them on their
mission in Hong Kong.
It was also Noora who booked their air
tickets and provided them the four traveling bags with the concealed
cocaine slabs, he said. She also gave them specific instructions to take
the bags to Chung King Mansions.
But Kevin Egan, for defendant Chua, disputed this story.
"If there was conspiracy, my client would
have known all her companions in the trip to Hong Kong from the
beginning,” Egan argued.
He said Chua did not get to know all the other defendants until the day of their departure.
Egan said his client had no plan to visit
Hong Kong until the last minute, when she met Noora and Roque in the
beauty parlor where she went for grooming.
Chua, in fact, did not know that she was already being booked on Sept 22, 2015, by Noora for the flight to Hong Kong, Egan said.
He said the woman is a single mother with a young daughter and son who she could not leave alone at home.
As for agreeing to take the traveling bag
to Chung King Mansions, Egan said it was a Filipino custom to oblige a
request for help by other people.
Diane Cribbens, for Thomas, said there
were two important issues: 1) the prosecution had to prove its case
beyond reasonable doubt; and 2) the jury must consider the cases against
each defendant individually.
“Even if you find evidence strong enough
to convict one defendant, it may not be sufficient to convict another,”
Cribbens told the jury.
Cribbens said Thomas, a mother of four
who was separated from her husband, was receiving money every two weeks
from the commander of her soldier-husband’s unit. She had no financial
need that would have pushed her to drug trafficking, the lawyer said.
She said Thomas was asked by her
acquaintance Roque if she wanted to travel to Hong Kong for free, so,
she agreed as she had never been here. “She was just a last-minute
tug-along,” Cribbens said.
Phil Chau, for Creus, said his client was
a single, young professional, a dentist who was earning more than
P30,000 a month from her practice.
Chau noted it was only Creus whose phone
did not have messages showing she had knowledge of the Hong Kong
operation. She was excluded from the loop and got a massage from Noora
only once.
Wright said Noora, who he referred to as
“the boss”, and the Filipino van driver who brought the four bags to
replace the four defendants’ luggage, were part of the conspiracy.
