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| Lady Justice atop HK's Court of Final Appeal |
More than six years after being jailed for a crime she has always denied committing, a Filipina tourist was today ordered freed by the Court of Appeal, which quashed her conviction for conspiracy to manufacture a dangerous drug.
Anna Mae J. Enriquez, 42, was originally
sentenced to 28 years in prison on June 27, 2022 after a High Court jury voted
5-2 to convict her of the drug manufacturing conspiracy.
In allowing her appeal against conviction,
the CA ruled that the trial judge erred in not instructing the jury that
Enriquez’s mere presence in the flat where the drug methamphetamine
hydrochloride (commonly known as ice or shabu) was found cooking in the
kitchen, was enough to infer guilt.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Further, the judge failed to properly address
the jury about the prosecution’s failure to identify the appellant’s role in
the drug manufacture.
The CA, made up of Vice President Andrew Macrae and Justices of Appeal Kevin Zervos and Maggie Poon, also rejected the prosecution's application for a retrial.
Enriquez was initially found guilty of conspiring with 58-year-old local resident Kent Lam Tsz Kin and 38-year-old Mexican Marco Torres Gonzales to manufacture 4.7 kilos of the drug, ice, between Mar 5 and 6 in 2019.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
Lam,
whose wife was renting the flat where the drug was found, was eventually sentenced
to 29 years in jail, while Gonzales who had helped buy the pot used to extract the drug in its liquid form, was jailed for 28 years.
Trial
judge Esther Toh said in sentencing that manufacturing drugs is a more serious
offence than drug trafficking, for which the prescribed starting point would
have been 26 years in jail.
Both
Lam and Gonzales tried to obtain leave to appeal their conviction and
sentence, but were unsuccessful.
Enriquez, on the other hand, was granted leave
on Jun 4 last year by Justice Zervos, on the grounds that 1) the judge failed to instruct the jury that the appellant's mere presence in the flat was insufficient to infer that she was
part of the conspiracy and that 2) the circumstantial evidence was insufficient
to draw the “irresistible inference” of guilt.
According to Zervos, “the extent of the evidence against (Enriquez)
was that she was present at the time the police raided the flat.”
Zervos also allowed Enriquez to appeal against
her sentence despite her not applying for it, and even it was made out of time.
The
three defendants were arrested by police in a raid on Mar 6, 2019 at the To Kwa
Wan flat where “ice” was found cooking in the kitchen.
At
the time of the arrest, Enriquez had been in the flat for just two hours, and said
she had merely chatted with Gonzales the whole time.
Enriquez
said she arrived in Hong Kong on Mar 5, and Lam’ sister-in-law who lives in the
Philippines along with her husband, had promised to take her shopping that day,
but backed out at the last minute.
The
next day, Enriquez said Lam invited her to go up to his flat nearby, where she
met Gonzalez. She claimed they spent more than two hours chatting about their
children and using their phones to go on social media.
Both
denied knowing anything about the drug manufacturing that was happening in the
kitchen at the time.
The
court was told that Enriquez used to live in Hong Kong with her now-estranged
husband and their children, but they all decided to return to
the Philippines when her application for permanent residency was
denied.
Enriquez
has two daughters aged 22 and 21, and a 15-year-old son. All had attended their
mother’s trial more than six years ago, and were left in copious tears by the verdict
and sentence.
Today
they were all back at the High Court, this time, to hear the great news of their
mother’s court victory.
