APPEAL COURT ASKED TO RESURRECT CHARGES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

Judge Ruled Rights Had Been Violated

Prosecutors were in the B.C. Court of Appeal Tuesday, seeking to
overturn a decision by a judge to stay methamphetamine-trafficking
charges against an alleged associate of the Hells Angels.

In July 2005, Nima Ghavami was one of more than a dozen men charged
after the RCMP's Project E-Pandora crackdown on the East End chapter
of the notorious motorcycle club.

The case was split into multiple indictments and Ghavami's case was
adjourned a number of times until, in December 2008, B.C. Supreme
Court Justice Peter Leask ruled that Ghavami's rights had been
violated due to an unreasonable delay.

Leask blamed the prosecution for much of the 44-month delay.

But federal prosecutor Paul Riley told a three-member panel of the
Appeal Court Tuesday that the judge had made a number of errors.

The judge failed to properly assess the inherent time requirements of
the case, Riley said. Instead of looking at the chronology of events,
the judge examined an abstract or notional range of time that might be
required.

Riley said Leask also wrongly stepped into the shoes of prosecutors to
criticize how they structured the indictments.

"He failed to give appropriate weight to the seriousness of the
charges and the public interest in seeing them come to trial."

Glen Orris, Ghavami's lawyer, argued that the trial judge had made no
such errors.

He noted the case proceeded by direct indictment, bypassing the need
for a preliminary hearing, and therefore a greater onus should have
been in place to expedite the case.

And he said the nature of the charges --Ghavami initially faced the
more serious accusation he'd committed the offence in association with
a criminal organization--contributed to the delay.

"That unduly complicates any indictment," Orris said.

"You can see where an accused would resist pleas or would fight
aggressively in order to avoid a criminal-organization allegation or
proof. And that's exactly what happened in this case. There were
delays, there were fights."

The panel reserved judgment.