BAIL HEARING DELAYED UNTIL BOAT SEARCHED

Five men charged with importing drugs made a brief appearance in
Victoria provincial court Wednesday only to have their bail hearing
put off until next week.

That happened while officials at CFB Esquimalt were faced with the
smelly task of unloading rotten fish from the hold of a former tuna
boat to see what, if anything, was stashed beneath it.

The men were arrested early Monday in Ucluelet as the 47-metre
vessel, the MV Bakur, tied up. Mounties had been tracking the vessel
since it left Halifax in December and travelled through the Panama
Canal bound for the West Coast.

Among the accused is Phil Stirling, 52, a former Victoria fishermen
who in 2001 owned the Western Wind, which was seized in Juan de Fuca
Strait with 2.5 tonnes of cocaine worth $250 million in its bow. The
engineer aboard the Western Wind, 46-year-old John Edward Corbin of
Waham, Alta., was also among those arrested Monday.

No charges were laid in connection with the Western Wind case.

Stirling and Corbin are charged with drug importation, along with
66-year-old Ralph Ross Harris of Ladysmith, 46-year-old John Edward
Corbin of Chase and Walberto Armenta-Ruelas, 40, of Sonora, Mexico.

The five men crammed into a bench in court to hear Vancouver
prosecutor Peter Hogg ask for an adjournment until Monday morning,
giving time for the search of the vessel to be completed.

Twenty five RCMP officers and specialists from the Canadian Border
Services Agency (CBSA) have turned up more than 1,360 kilograms of
marijuana from the MV Bakur, a 155-foot fishing vessel moored at CFB
Esquimalt, "and they're not anywhere done," said RCMP Insp. Paul Nadeau.

"We anticipate another 24 hours of searching," he said mid-afternoon Wednesday.

More charges are likely to be coming down the pike, said Nadeau. In
the meantime, the four Canadians and one Mexican national are being
held in custody.

Searchers had to wear special breathing apparatus to unload rotten
fish from the boat's hold.

"We're curious to find what's underneath there," Nadeau said. "We
find it strange that people would have over 5,000 pounds of rotting
fish in a hold."

The CBSA officers are experts at searching vessels of this type, he said.

"We're following a plan so we don't miss any spots or any nooks or
crannies," said Nadeau.

There are three holds and two were full of marijuana bales at the
time the boat was seized and the arrests made at 2:30 a.m. Monday, Nadeau said.

"And now we're finding bales, 25 here and another 15 there, all over
the place. It will take awhile and the numbers will go up, no doubt."

Hogg said outside court that importing marijuana to B.C. "was like
bringing in coal to Newcastle."

But Nadeau said this product, believed to be from Mexico, is
different that B.C.-grown bud.

"It's really comparing apples with oranges. We'll be testing to see
what sort of THC -- the active ingredient -- we're dealing with.
There's obviously a market for it.

"The potency of the product here, that's grown indoors, is higher
than that product but some people are unimpressed and somewhat scared
of the stuff that's grown here because of the amount of THC in it."

Future charges may deal with the vessel crew not reporting in to CBSA
as is required, said Nadeau.