Life in the hands of a drug mastermind

A New Zealander caught in one of Australia's biggest cocaine cases is appealing against a jail term twice that of the drug kingpin. PATRICK GOWER reports.

A New Zealand man jailed for 24 years for helping to smuggle a record shipment of cocaine into Australia is pinning his hopes for freedom on the drug lord at the centre of the operation.

In a letter to the Herald from Sydney's maximum-security Lithgow jail, Hamish Edmond Thompson claims the drug lord, Russell Douglas Bateman, has never heard of him but was prevented from giving evidence of the minor role he played.

The 49-year-old's lawyers are appealing against the conviction on the grounds that they could not call Bateman, who received half the sentence Thompson did because of a plea-bargain deal with police.

The 500kg of cocaine - with an estimated street value of $327 million - was shipped from Colombia in late 1999 and intercepted in New South Wales in February 2000.

The Australian Customs service tracked the yacht Ngaire Wha from New Zealand.

A boat had sailed from Colombia and met the Ngaire Wha near the Bay of Islands, where it offloaded the 21 bales of cocaine.

Thompson, fellow New Zealander "Sir" Thomas Graham Fry and another man were aboard the yacht when police pounced after tracking it with an aircraft and high-speed boat.

Thompson and Fry were sentenced to life imprisonment and four others to 24 years.

In New Zealand, the maximum sentence for importing a Class A drug is life imprisonment, which has a standard parole period of 10 years. Thompson has a minimum non-parole period of 16 years on his sentence, while Fry has a 25-year minimum.

Bateman received a 13-year sentence with a minimum non-parole period of eight years.

Thompson's defence is he was taking the Ngaire Wha for a "trial trip" after buying it for $160,000 on behalf of Fry but for Bateman. It was to be used for charters.

He said he became aware of the cocaine when the Colombians loaded it on board in the middle of the night.

Fry and the other man forced him to sail to Australia.

But Australian Federal Police spokesman Steve Simpson said yesterday that Thompson was a crew member recruited by Fry, "and although I can't categorically say he knew what he was recruited for, [the evidence] does suggest to me he knew what it was". Bateman's plea bargain deal - described by the co-accused as "going dog" by rolling over on them - was later criticised by the trial judge, Judge Ian Dodd.

He said there was no doubt Bateman had financed and organised the drug shipment.

Judge Dodd said the Crown should have provided Bateman's sentencing judge with material that showed his role in the importation.

Despite the deal, the Crown did not call Bateman at the trial because of his unreliability.

Transcripts of the committal hearing seen by the Herald show Bateman gave evidence that he did not know of Thompson, had never met him and had not spoken to him.

Thompson's trial lawyer, Piet Baird, said they managed to get Bateman in the stand, but his testimony was thwarted by eleventh-hour submissions by the other defence lawyers.

They were worried about the damaging evidence he could give against their clients under Crown cross-examination.

"Hamish was the local patsy being used by the international big boys," said Mr Baird.

"He at least had the veneer of credibility."

Mr Simpson confirmed that police found no evidence linking Bateman and Thompson. He said the Australian Federal Police would refuse to comment on the deal given to Bateman.

While he was authorised to release mugshots of Thompson and Fry to the Herald, a picture of Bateman was withheld because of the "sensitivity" surrounding him.

This is not Thompson's first stint in an Australian prison. In 1977 he was caught in a failed attempt to take 5000 sticks of cannabis into Australia through New Zealand. He also did time with Fry in Australia in the early 1990s.

Thompson, a twin son of a Christchurch doctor, was known as a talented student at St Bede's college.

In his early 20s he married a French woman and worked for a travel agency in France, where he told acquaintances he was once caught for cocaine possession.

At the time of the thwarted cocaine importation he was listed by the Australian police as a single man with no dependants, living at a Mt Eden address. He is believed to have been doing a diving course, university papers and working as a boat detailer.

His nine-page letter focuses mainly on the favourable deal Bateman gained by "dogging" on him, and on the drug lord's escapades during six years on the run.

"The last thing the Australian authorities need is more publicity about this man's deeds, exploits and most of all the deal he received off them," he said.