TRANG GANG TRIAL JUDGE ON SPOT

A trial that began nearly two years ago stemming from the massive
cocaine-trafficking case against an alleged city drug gang could end up
back at Square 1.

Defence lawyers for 11 alleged lower-echelon members of the Trang gang are
asking Court of Queen's Bench Justice Doreen Sulyma to remove herself from
the case.

The lawyers argue Sulyma lost "jurisdiction" over the trial when she
ordered defence counsel from the courtroom and had a private discussion
with the Crown about the disclosure of some potentially privileged evidence.

If Sulyma is successfully forced off the case - which has already cost
taxpayers millions of dollars - a new trial would have to be ordered.

"This is not a frivolous application," defence lawyer Marshall Hopkins told
Sulyma, despite what he called the Crown's good intentions regarding the
disclosure matter.

"What happened was clear. The accused were denied the right to be present,"
said Hopkins yesterday.

He said the fact the defence lawyers did not object to being excluded from
the courtroom on Sept. 4 is irrelevant and noted they were not asked about
the procedure.

"Rather the court ordered defence counsel to leave," said Hopkins.

"There has been an affront to the system of open justice," he said. "The
trial should not continue."

During the application, the judge questioned whether she had lost
jurisdiction over the case which led to defence lawyer Richard Cairns
alleging that excluding the accused from the courtroom is an error of
judgment. Federal prosecutors are slated to argue today.

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.

As of the summer of 2001, the federal government had spent $3.8 million on
court-ordered defence legal fees and other expenses in the case.

The alleged gangsters were arrested in September 1999 following a massive
14-month police operation, which cost $750,000, in Edmonton, Red Deer and
Fort McMurray.