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| The green-colored bag containing a kilo of cocaine that doomed Chua |
A Filipina who spent more than eight years in jail for drug trafficking was acquitted of the charge on December 5 after a retrial, and is now back home in the Philippines where she has been reunited with her two children.
Shirley Masigla Chua, a single mother who is now 54 years old, walked free
from the High Court after the jury voted 5-2 in favour of acquittal.
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Mercy Foundation which is run by Fr. John
Wotherspoon, provided her with accommodation after she was released from jail,
and paid for her return ticket to Manila last Tuesday, Dec. 12.
Consul Paul Saret, head of the assistance to
nationals section, issued her with a one-way travel document as her passport
had expired while she was in jail.
Chua won the right to a retrial on Nov. 17 last
year, after three Court of Appeal justices overturned her drug trafficking
conviction for which she was sent to 20 years and 11 months in jail on
Sept. 20, 2017.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Justices Andrew Macrae, Kevin Zervos and Maggie Poon
unanimously decided her conviction was unsafe as the trial judge had failed to
properly direct the jury on the difference between mere suspicion and “turning
a blind eye” to a crime.
In Chua's case, she only admitted to having suspicions about the check-in bag she was made to carry to Hong Kong, but denied knowing that there was cocaine hidden inside.
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In their written judgment, the justices said: “A court can properly
find wilful blindness only where it can almost be said that the defendant
actually knew. He suspected the fact; he realised its probability; but he
refrained from obtaining the final confirmation because he wanted in the event
to be able to deny knowledge. This, and this alone, is wilful blindness. It
requires in effect a finding that the defendant intended to cheat the
administration of justice.”
While she did not give evidence during her first
trial, Chua told police during a video recorded interview that she saw
nothing suspicious inside the green hand-carried bag she was made to carry to
Hong Kong, but felt it was heavy.
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She also said she noticed the smell of menthol coming
from it and could hear noises when she knocked the bottom of the bag, but did
not bother to ask questions from the person who gave it to her.
The bag yielded nearly a kilo of cocaine after Chua
and a traveling companion, Maricel Thomas, were stopped on arrival at Hong Kong
International Airport on Sept. 25, 2015.
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| DETALYE |
Thomas carried a similar bag containing roughly the same amount of cocaine, but she was acquitted of drug trafficking after trial.
She said in her statement to the police that she had asked the person who requested her to bring it into Hong Kong if it contained drugs as she felt it was heavy, and she was told “no.” Thomas she had doubts because she was paid Php11,000 just to deliver it.
In the re-trial, Chua took the witness stand and insisted
that she did not know that the bag she was made to carry with her had contained
drugs.
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Chua’s nightmare began
on Sept 23, 2015 when a new acquaintance, Remelyn A. Roque and another woman
named Nora Noora invited her to join a trip to Hong Kong. Apart from Roque and
Thomas, another Filipina, a dentist named Ana Loella G. Creus, was to go with
them.
According to the prosecution,
all four accused had conspired to
smuggle cocaine into Hong Kong on Nora’s instructions. The plane tickets of
Chua, Roque and Creus were bought on Sept 22, 2015 while that for Thomas was
issued the next day.
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The four allegedly met
up with Nora at Roque’s house on Sept
25, 2015 before taking their flight to Hong Kong. Nora allegedly drove
them to a van, in which four identical trolley bags in different colours were
handed to them. Chua got the green bag, Thomas the red, Roque the brown, and
Creus the black.
After they transferred
their personal belongings into these bags, they were driven to the airport.
They hand-carried their respective bags on the flight to Hong Kong.
On arrival, Roque and Creus managed to pass unchallenged through the “nothing to declare” green channel but Chua and Thomas were stopped. An ensuring search yielded 1,225 grams of a powder containing 944 grams of cocaine hidden in the linings of Chua's bag and 1,203 grams of powder with 923 grams of cocaine in Thomas'.
Meanwhile, Roque and
Creus proceeded to a hostel in Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui. Creus was
later seen on CCTV delivering the brown and black bags to two men inside the
building in the early hours of Sept. 27, 2015. The two bags which were presumed
to have carried the same amount of drugs, were never recovered.
Roque and Creus were
arrested early on Sept 27, 2015 on their return to the airport.
Various mobile
telephones were seized from Chua, Roque and Creus. According to the
prosecution, messages retrieved from the
phones showed persistent communication between Roque, Creus, Nora and another
person called Fei Fei, concerning the trip and its conduct.
The messages included
one from Roque expressing thanks that she was not stopped for customs inspection,
and expressions of concern about Chua and Thomas being caught. Nora also told
Roque and Creus to contact their two travel companions and bring back the bags they were carrying or they would be killed.
Nora later warned the
two not to pass through immigration together on their return flight, and to
keep their distance from each other.
All four accused were
charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs, with an alternative charge of drug
trafficking being filed against Chua and Thomas, all in violation of the Dangerous
Drugs Ordinance. They all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
After a trial that started nearly two years after their arrests, Thomas was acquitted of all charges.
Chua was acquitted of the conspiracy charge but was found guilty of drug trafficking, for which she was sentenced to 20
years and 11 months in jail.
Roque and Creus were convicted of conspiracy to traffic drugs and were sentenced to 23 years and 11 months’ imprisonment and 24 years and 5 months’ imprisonment respectively.
All three appealed against their convictions but only Chua was successful. However, it would take her more than a year to regain freedom, after the Appeal Court decided to order a retrial instead of quashing her conviction outright.
In its decision, the CA justices noted that Chua has already served about half of her sentence by the time of the hearing of the appeal, assuming good behaviour, but said that a retrial was in order.
“What D1 faced was a very serious offence with a maximum term of life imprisonment. The error which caused this Court to allow the appeal is not concerned with the quality of the evidence but rather an error in law in the direction given by the judge. It is, in our view, in the interests of justice, to order a retrial.”
Chua's acquittal after the retrial may have been bittersweet, but could have only been welcomed not just by her, but also by her loving family and friends. Her children, in particular, had tried to send her messages through social media telling her not to worry about them, and expressed hope that they would be reunited with her soon.
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