US-bound trio found in container jailed
Three mainlanders who almost suffocated inside a US-bound container at Kwai Chung Container Terminal were jailed for 20 months each yesterday.
In sentencing, Magistrate Allan Wyeth said increasingly dangerous measures taken by people-smugglers were of 'very real concern'. Substantial jail terms were needed to discourage such life-threatening activities and to protect Hong Kong's borders, he said in Tsuen Wan Court.
He acknowledged that basic attempts had been made to equip the shipping container for its human cargo ahead of a planned voyage of at least a week. It contained mattresses, pillows, water, food, fans powered by car batteries, toilet paper and bins lined with plastic bags - presumably for use as toilets.
However, 'the journey was going to be uncomfortable and hazardous to health to say the least of it', Mr Wyeth said.
The men were part of a group of a dozen mainlanders from Fujian - the same province that lost 58 residents in the Dover tragedy last June - found in a shipping container at Kwai Chung Container Terminal on December 10.
Xie Saikun, 44, Lin Hoiliang, 37, and Zhu Zongqing, 39, pleaded guilty to being illegally in Hong Kong but not guilty to attempting to stow away. The men testified on Tuesday that they had intended to work on construction sites in Hong Kong, rather than go to the United States. Two of them were farmers and one was a construction worker.
'Put shortly, each defendant claims to have unexpectedly found themselves pushed or led into the container,' Mr Wyeth said. The container was plainly converted for human use and the defendants entered it in daylight but claimed not to have discussed the cost of the surprise container travel or where the journey would end, he said.
Mr Wyeth rejected their testimony as unbelievable.
He accepted the evidence of Detective Senior Inspector Vasco Williams, who described the arrest of the semi-conscious men to the court on Tuesday. A blast of hot air with a stench of rotten bananas had greeted him when he ordered the container opened, the detective had testified. The container had been sealed with an airlock made from two nylon sheets, escape doors had been spot-welded shut and air vents were closed, he said.
In a plea for mitigation yesterday, the men's lawyer, Frederick Chan Hing-fai, said they had no criminal records and had families to support on the mainland.
'For better or for worse they were rescued,' he said of his clients' arrest. 'In that sense, they were lucky.' But the incident had been an unfortunate experience and he urged the shortest possible jail term to allow them to return home.
The other men in the container pleaded guilty to the same charges in previous hearings and were sentenced to 18 months' jail.
Some of them admitted paying snakeheads who arranged their trips for US$50,000 (HK$389,000), which they would have to pay once they got to the US.
