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| The stolen backpack fell inside the departure area of HK Intl Airport |
A Filipina airport worker was found guilty today of stealing a rucksack containing cash and other personal belongings that fell from a departing passenger’s luggage, after a trial at West Kowloon Court.
Ana Labicane, 55, who worked at the Maison Kaiser bakery
shop inside the departure area of the airport, will be handed down her sentence
on June 11. Magistrate Tsang Hing-tung ordered her $500 cash bail cancelled and
remanded her in jail custody.
He also ordered a background report to guide him in
formulating her punishment.
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| TAWAG NA! |
Labicane was charged with stealing the bag in the early
morning of March 5, 2023 near the shop of Tung Fung Hung in the Departure Hall of
the Hong Kong Airport. The bag contained cash of HK$630, one Octopus card, two Taiwan prepaid
transportation cards, 11,100 Taiwan dollars in cash, one cosmetic bag, two passport
holders, one HK passport, one wallet, one HKID card, one WeWu UnionPay credit card,
and four ATM cards.
She was captured on CCTV carrying the bag to the bakery
shop, where she hid the bag in the storage room. She was also filmed going to
two toilets, where some contents of the bag were later found.
During the trial, Labicane questioned the accuracy of a cautioned
statement she made to the police, where she admitted that she “took the backpack
and money for my own use.”
But Magistrate Tsang noted that Labicane was assisted by a Filipino
interpreter, who had been working as such in Hong Kong for 33 years, along with
a Chinese-English interpreter working with police, which could have detected
errors in translation.
He also rejected her assertions that she was not given time
to read her statement, as she did not have her reading glasses at the time. “Defendant
was able to read the evidence without glasses during the trial,” he noted.
Tsang also rejected her testimony that she only had
rudimentary knowledge of English, so she signed the statement without
understanding it.
She answered questions in English during the trial without
waiting for the court interpreter to finish translation to Filipino, Tsang
noted. And she was working as a sales person in the airport, where some mastery
of English was required.
In contrast, he gave credence to the testimonies of the
police officers who went to the shop where she worked, who testified that she led
them to where she hid the bag, that she pulled a white envelope containing the
Taiwanese money from her trouser pocket, and that she pointed them to the two toilets
where she disposed of other contents of the stolen bag, namely the cosmetic bag
and the owner’s passport.
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