SENTENCE FOR DRUGS 'SHOULD BE DOUBLED'

A convicted Irish drugs trafficker's Dutch jail sentence should be
doubled, an Amsterdam Court has heard.

Judges of Amsterdam Court of Appeal yesterday were requested by the
state public prosecutor to increase a two-year sentence imposed on
Cork drugs trafficker Sean O'Flynn last December to four years.

O'Flynn (49) of Arigadeen Lawn, Togher, Cork was convicted of
trafficking 25,000 ecstasy tablets and sentenced to two years at
Utrecht Court.

At the time of his arrest garda sources said the drugs haul found in a
car in which O'Flynn and a Dutch accomplice were traveling last August
in Utrecht were destined for markets in the Munster area. O'Flynn had
earlier been jailed for three years in Spain for possession of 104
kilos of hashish, the Court there heard.

The Amsterdam Appeal Court judges were told yesterday by O'Flynn that
he came to the Netherlands on August 9 last year hoping to find a job
in the offshore oil industry and travelled to the northern town of Den
Helder to attend interviews.

He said he agreed foolishly to collect a sports bag for an
acquaintance outside an Amsterdam cafe after being told by a contact
that the man was stuck in traffic and couldn't make the pick-up himself.

When Court President Mr C Streefkerk said they had some difficulty
believing that O'Flynn had no prior knowledge of the bags contents E
tablets worth half-a-million guilders (nearly pounds 170,000) and that
he claimed the bag was handed to him by a man whose name he said he
did not even know and for no payment O'Flynn replied: ``I was a small
time I was just to pick them up.''

He was unaware that he was transporting a bag later found to contain
25,000 E tablets, the Irishman added.

His lawyer Ms Benedicte Ficq said media reports had put O'Flynn under
extreme psychological pressure and he did not want to reveal personal
details while a press reporter was in court.

The court chairman Mr C Streefkerk ruled that O'Flynn be allowed to
supply personal information about himself to the court sitting in
camera and the Irish press representative was asked to leave.

Defence counsel said that police telephone tap evidence in his
original trial confused him with other Irishmen involved in drug
related crime. O'Flynn admitted transporting the E tablets but was
neither a buyer nor a trafficker.

But Dutch public prosecutor Mrs M Koers said it has been proven that
Mr O'Flynn came to Holland to close a drugs deal and called for the
original two-year sentence to be increased to four years.

The verdict will be given on July 1.