A new record has been made - this is the first time I have blogged 3 days in a row!!!

Ok, back to serious business, today is Friday the 13th. Many believe it to be an unlucky day but I'm not that superstitious - more so when my sports house (Rumah Unggul) won the overall champion title on Sports Day back in 2002 when it was held on Friday the 13th...

But Friday the 13th may spell bad news for some criminals... On my way to CRUfAD this morning, I saw both the Channel Seven and Nine vans parked outside the Darlinghurst Courthouse with several news crew and reporters outside the courthouse - wonder what's going on inside...

The Darlinghurst Courthouse

The 7 News van

Justice is served...

Curious to know what may be "the big deal", I decided to do a little online search to see what the national news have in store today. A very interesting result emerged and I suspect the juicy bit of news may be connected to the hype outside the courthouse today - but I may be wrong as it wasn't mentioned specifically which court the case was trialled - read below for the doped-up news... literally, haha...

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Top NSW cop refused bail on drug charges

11:37 AEST Fri Jun 13 2008

51 minutes ago

A top NSW crimefighter facing charges over an alleged multi-million dollar drug conspiracy has been refused bail in a Sydney court.

Mark Standen, 51, an assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission and a former federal police officer, was arrested and charged last week over an alleged conspiracy to import 600kg of pseudoephedrine.

Standen's lawyer Paul King provided Magistrate Allan Moore with written submissions on Thursday.

Mr Moore on Friday ruled that Standen would remain in custody on the grounds he was too great a flight risk.

Standen appeared in court via audio visual link from special protective custody.

Standen was among a group of people arrested in Australia, The Netherlands and Bangkok over an alleged bid to import enough of the precursor chemical pseudoephedrine to manufacture 480kg of the illegal drug ice.

The chemicals were allegedly due to be shipped into Australia inside a container of rice from Pakistan and by several other methods.

Mr Moore said he had taken into consideration written statements from Standen's two eldest children as well as his current "undesirable" situation in protective custody.

However, he said given Standen's former position in the NSW Crime Commission, there was too great a risk of him leaving the country for him to post bail.

"I can't ignore his position within the Crime Commission," Mr Moore said.

"He has information about methodology which could assist his departure from the country."

Standen's family attended court on Friday but refused to answer media questions outside.

Labels: Australia, Malaysia, Medicine, Opinions