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| The cocaine-soaked bedsheets found in Dickensheets' luggage |
A High Court judge has sentenced a 56-year-old Filipina asylum seeker to 20 years and 8 months in jail after she was found guilty after trial for drug trafficking, along with two others.
Rosita B. Palao who had worked as a domestic helper for
15 years before overstaying and subsequently filing for non-refoulement, was arrested
on May 15, 2023 as she tried to pick up a consignment of liquid cocaine that
had been brought into Hong Kong by her American co-defendant.
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United States national Stephen Dickensheets, 68, had flown into Hong Kong the day before from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Paris, France, with a check-in luggage containing 17 bed sheets soaked with the liquefied drug. He was arrested while undergoing secondary check at customs clearance.
Customs originally put the amount of cocaine found in
his possession to be 10 kilos, but the amount was downgraded to 1.5 kilos after
extensive examination by the Government Laboratory. The street value of the
haul was estimated to be about HK$1.9 million.
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| Pindutin para sa detalye |
Because of his cooperation with the authorities which
led to the arrest of Palao and a third defendant, Nigeria and Benin national Fousseni
Orou Nicki, Dickensheets received a reduced sentence of 19 years and 8 months.
Fousseni, also an asylum seeker, received the longest
sentence of 21 years and 8 months, after the court found him to be the key player
in the operation.
He was arrested much later than the two, after police investigators
traced him from the telephone number he used in directing Palao to pick up the
drugs from Dickensheets at a hotel in Tin Shui Wai.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
All three denied any knowledge about the drugs haul.
Dickensheets told the court he thought he was meant to
deliver only gifts, and did not know that the bed sheets in the suitcase that
was passed on to him in Brazil contained drugs.
Palao said she merely volunteered to pick up Mother’s
Day gifts, at the instruction of a Chinese person she only knew as “Tear,” who
communicated with her only by telephone.
Fousseini who was granted leave last year to appeal Immigration’s rejection of his non-refoulement claim, denied being Tear, who directed Palao to pick up the drugs.
But law enforcers testified tracing the phone messages and
calls made to Palao to Fousseni, who was also found to
have been in regular contact with the Filipina since 2021.
In sentencing, Judge DÁlmada Remedios told Palao and
Fousseni that they had betrayed the trust placed on them by the Hong Kong
authorities by committing a serious crime while on recognizance, or while
awaiting the result of their application for non-refoulement.
The international element of the offence that all the
accused were found to have committed, also merited a more severe penalty.
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