Man charged with cannabis factories find

Man charged with cannabis factories find

A Belfast man was charged at a special court in Omagh on Saturday in connection with the discovery of two cannabis growhouses near Pomeroy, Co Tyrone.

Moaaz Hassan was charged with cultivation and possession of cannabis, and illegally using electricty. A police witness told the court police had found 177 plants in two houses at Sperrin Cottages, Tremoge Rd. Pomeroy, on Tuesday last. Hassan had rented both houses.

“He claimed he had only subletted one of the cottages to a Polish man,” the witness said. Hassan claimed the paperwork regarding this was in offices in Dublin. A friend was responsible for collecting the rent.

The witness said Hassan had previous drugs convictions. “Our belief it that the defendant is involved in the cultivation and supply of cannabis,” he said.

Making a bail application, defence solicitor Dennis Boyd said police had been willing to release Hassan on police bail, on condition he surrender his passport. However, this cannot be found. Hassan could have fled the jurisdiction after the raid. “Would he have needed a passport to go to the Republic of Ireland?” he asked the police witness.

“Not yet,” the witness replied.

He said Hassan was an Irish citizen, born in Saudi Arabia. His family moved to the Republic when he was six months old, then moved North in 2009.

There were difficulties with establishing that Hassan had rented the houses. “The owner of the premises in travelling at the moment,” Boyd said. A girl in the offices of a property management company in Dublin said the signed copy of the lease is “in storage further south.” Locating it will take some time.

The police witness said Hassan had access to his passport recently, as he had travelled to both Egypt and Turkey. Hassan said he had it in his pocket when travelling, but now couldn't find it. He had not yet reported it as missing. “I'm still looking for it,” he said.

Objecting to bail, the police witness said police had visited the proposed bail address, his parents' home. “There was no sign of his clothes or his personal belongings in the room shown to us,” the witness said.

Judge Eamonn King granted bail to 28 year old Hassan, of Cliftonpark Ave, Belfast. There was to be a £10,000 cash lodgement, an electronic tag, and a curfew. Hassan is to appear at Dungannon Magistrates Court on June 26^th.

Note: an edited version of this piece was published in the 'Tyrone Herald' of June 17th 2019

Trafficked Vietnamese fount not guilty

Trafficked Vietnamese found not guilty

A judge has complimented a jury for finding a Vietnamese man not guilty of cultivating cannabis on the basis he was a victim of human trafficking. “I don't normally express views on a jury decision, but I wholeheartedly agree,” Judge Neil Rafferty told the jury in Omagh Crown Court. “It is a tribute to the way you have behaved as a jury. Northern Ireland for the past decade has been one of the prime routes for human trafficking into the united Kingdom.” Defendant Nguyen Hung Van (43) of The Mills, Coalisland, had been arrested in a police raid on a cannabis growhouse in Coalisland in 2017. When questioned, he told police: “I was there as a restult of being a slave.”

Former Director of Anti-Slavery International Dr Aidan McQuade gave expert evidence on behalf of Van. McQuade told the court there were six or seven indicators of forced labour in Van's account. “Slavery or forced labout tends to be a constellation of offences,” McQuade told the Court. While cannabis factories tend to be staffed by young Vietnamese men and boys “The pattern of exploitation he describes prior to being arrested is typical of older men.

A police witness told the court Van's arrest was part of an operation into South-East Asian crime gangs operating cannabis plantations in Northern Ireland.

Van told the Court he came from a poor and mountainous part of Vietnam. His mother had paid €35,000 to traffickers to take him to France. A woman accompanied him and several other trafficked migrants on a flight to Paris. She kept the passports. He was only given it to get through immigration contol. “I had a look at the passport,” he said. “My photo, not my name, my age.” The passport was never returned to him. He was subsequently moved to London. There he worked in take-aways, nail-shops and Asian vegetable shops, working 12-hour days for £15 per day.

A Vietnamese gangmaster called Baô paid him.

Then he was taken to Dublin in a car with two others: a man who drove, and a woman associate of Baô. In Dublin he worked cooking in takeaways for €25 per day for 13 hour shifts. He lived with about 10 others in a flat above a Chinese takeaway.

For a while, he was able to get a job independently. “Under pressure from the gangsters, they had to let me leave,” Van said. In the Vietnamese community “Baô and his associated controlled everything.” When he returned to their contol, the traffickers beat him on the legs. “You are very well behaved, but your legs are naughty,” they told him. Members of the same gang in Vietnam broke his mother's arm.

A European person then drove him to Northern Ireland. He was unsure whether the man was Irish, or some other nationality. He was supposedly to work in a restaurant. However, he was taken to the house in Coalisland and left there with a bag of groceries to tend the cannabis plants. “If I left that house, they would find my mother and punish her,” he said.

Prosecution barrister Michael McAleer pointed out there was a key in the back door of the house. He said this meant Van could leave if he wished. Defence barrister asked where was Van going to go as a “Vietnamese in Coalisland with no money.” When arrested Van could not speak English. He has learned some while on remand in prison over the past two years.

Other evidence given during the trial indicated that the Vietnamese gangsters had local links. A police witness said that the house had initially been rented by a man who called himself George Hamilton. The owner told police 'Hamilton' had a local accent. He paid £4,700 in cash in rent for the house. On one occasion when 'Hamilton' met the owner, he was accompanied by an Asian woman and a young Asian man. 'Hamilton' said these were his wife and her son.

Van was not released after the verdict, as he is currently in Maghaberry prison subject to a deportation order. Defence barrister Ward said Van's solicitor Seamus Duffy intends to fight that order.

Note: Edited versions of this piece were published in the 'Sunday World' of June 16th 2019 and the 'Tyrone Herald' of June 17th.