BLUNDER ABORTS $5M HEROIN TRIAL

A man jailed in Melbourne for 16 years as the alleged boss of an
international drug syndicate that imported pure heroin worth $5million may
walk free after a blunder by the prosecution.

The National Crime Authority and Australian Federal Police celebrated last
year when Ken Khanh Phong Ha was jailed after years of painstaking
investigative work in Europe and Asia.

But after millions of dollars were spent investigating and prosecuting Mr
Ha, the Victorian Court of Appeal last week quashed his conviction, set
aside his sentence and ordered a new trial because it was revealed by
defence counsel Lillian Lieder, QC, that he had been unlawfully ordered to
stand trial on the wrong charge.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions admitted the stunning
error to Victoria's Chief Justice, John Harber Phillips, and two other
appeal judges in conceding Mr Ha's appeal on January 29.

The costly blunder, described by a DPP spokesman as an "inadvertent
oversight", has international ramifications as it breached Australia's
treaty obligations with Hong Kong over Mr Ha's extradition in 1997.

The treaty between Australia and Hong Kong specifies that a person can be
prosecuted only in the country to which he or she has been returned for the
offence they were extradited on.

Australia sought Mr Ha's extradition from 1996 on a charge of being
knowingly concerned in the importation of a prohibited import, three
kilograms of pure heroin.

Mr Ha, who eventually consented to his extradition in 1997, was committed
to stand trial on that charge, but was presented before Judge Peter Rendit
in the Victorian County Court in 1999 on a charge of importation to which
he pleaded not guilty.

Mr Ha's solicitor, Theo Magazis, of Cole and Magazis, told The Age there
would be a legal challenge as to whether the DPP should be given leave to
file a new indictment out of time.

Mr Magazis said Mr Ha would challenge the legality and validity of the
indictment that had already been served on him after his successful appeal.

In his trial opening, prosecutor Brent Young alleged Mr Ha was responsible
for the ideas and initiative behind an importation of heroin through Sydney
that ultimately arrived at a Springvale house.

Mr Young said Mr Ha and his sister Jan Ha, who was later jailed for her
part in the operation, concocted a complex system of codes for telephone
communications and divided labor between them to minimise danger from their
high-risk, high-gain illegal enterprise.

Judge Rendit, in sentencing Mr Ha last July, told him that retribution was
warranted for the "deliberate and cynical acts that fed your greed" to make
profit at the expense of heroin victims, their families and the community.

Mark Pedley, deputy director of the DPP's Melbourne office, told The Age
that the oversight made it appropriate for the Crown to concede Mr Ha's
appeal "in light of the fact that the undertaking had been made and the
importance of it in an extradition context".

Mr Pedley said that "of course we wish it had not occurred", but the
oversight was unintended and the DPP planned to present Mr Ha for trial in
accordance with the order of the Court of Appeal.