JUDGE STAYS ON DRUG TRIAL

A judge in Edmonton's large drug gang trial ruled yesterday she has not
lost jurisdiction of the case and dismissed a defence application seeking
her removal.

The defence lawyers for 11 alleged lower-echelon members of the Trang drug
gang had applied to have Court of Queen's Bench Justice Doreen Sulyma take
herself off the case after she ordered them from the courtroom on Sept. 4
and had a private discussion with the Crown.

"I do not uphold the defence position," said Sulyma. "I have concluded the
court has not lost its jurisdiction."

Defence lawyers had argued that excluding them from the proceedings had
denied the accused their right to be present throughout the trial and
thereby put the judge in the position of having lost her jurisdiction.

Federal prosecutor Robert Short had argued there was no need for Sulyma to
remove herself from the case because no evidence was given and no decisions
were reached during the brief private discussion regarding the disclosure
of some potentially privileged evidence.

If Sulyma had been successfully forced off the nearly two-year-old case -
which has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars - a new trial would
have had to be ordered.

The 11 accused, who face charges of conspiring to traffic in cocaine, were
originally part of a group of 21 alleged gangsters who were severed from a
group of 30 when the Crown streamlined the case by splitting it into two
trials. Since the March 2001 rejigging, charges have been stayed against at
least 10 of the accused.

A $2.1-million super-courtroom was built in the bowels of the downtown
courthouse for the case.