B.C. MAN FREE AFTER 2 YEARS IN AUSSIE JAIL

Hinke Acquitted Of Drug Charges

After nearly two years in a maximum-security prison in Australia,
environmental protester and author Carl John Hinke is back home in Victoria
following his acquittal on drug charges.

Hinke, 54, was arrested in Sydney on Christmas Eve 2002 in connection with
a $40-million ecstasy import scheme -- one of Australia's largest-ever drug
busts.

Hinke maintained his innocence. But, as a foreigner, he was ineligible for
bail and spent two years behind bars.

He was released last Tuesday after the jury found him not guilty of aiding
and abetting, counselling or procuring a prohibited import.

"He was very relieved at the result and grateful to the jury," his lawyer,
Gregory Goold, told The Province yesterday from Sydney.

In a cruel twist, Hinke was kept in custody even after his acquittal.

"We have the unfortunate situation here that, even though he was acquitted,
his visa had expired and therefore he was an illegal alien and he
immediately went back to immigration custody," Goold said.

Hinke left Sydney on Thursday and flew back to Canada with his daughter,
Sarah Plank, who had flown to Sydney from her home in Victoria to hear the
verdict.

At Plank's home yesterday, Hinke said he was still too overwhelmed to talk
about his experience. "I am just very happy to be home," he said.

Hinke gained prominence as an anti-logging activist in Tofino in the late
1980s. His public support of tree-spiking -- a practice that can seriously
injure loggers -- and his assertion that close to 23,000 trees on Meares
Island had been spiked, drew harsh criticism.

He went to jail for violating a court injunction by setting up a tent on a
Clayquot Sound logging road.

The New Jersey-born Hinke is also known for his Latin translations of
several classic children's books, among them Charlotte's Web and The Wizard
of Oz. He is also the author of a bibliography of L. Frank Baum's books,
titled Oz in Canada.

He has faced drug charges before.

In 1993, he pleaded not guilty in Nanaimo provincial court to charges of
possessing close to five tonnes of hashish for the purposes of trafficking.
Three other men were charged in connection with the $68-million bust in a
Courtenay workshop. Hinke was acquitted, but one of his co-accused served
two years.

His arrest in south Sydney occurred as he was having dinner at a Cronulla
Beach seafood restaurant with local businessman Wayne Robert Moore.

While they were eating, police, after a four-month investigation, uncovered
close to a million ecstacy pills hidden in industrial plastic tubing in
Moore's garage.

The pair were arrested before they finished their meal. A third man,
Francis Hetherington Ballis, was arrested elsewhere.

Ballis pleaded not guilty and was also acquitted. Moore pleaded guilty and
was sentenced to 20 years.

Goold said Hinke was frustrated at being kept in custody for years as an
innocent man, but had little recourse.

"Under Australian law, provided the suspicion is reasonable, there is no
comeback for compensation," he said.

"Once the decision has to go to a jury for verdict, that establishes that
there is a reasonable suspicion because the judge has considered there is
enough evidence to go to a jury."

Hinke, a Vietnam War protester who came to Canada in the 1960s, had been
splitting his time between Australia and Thailand (where he taught at a
university) since the late 1990s. He said it's unlikely he'll return to
Australia soon.