Pair to face trial on coke charges
TWO men will stand trial accused of selling cocaine to about 60 people more than 300 times.
However, police allegations that they were linked to the Comanchero bikie gang and recruited five other people to their drug syndicate were dropped yesterday.
Chris Duspara and Onur Ada were yesterday committed to stand trial in the Supreme Court in Brisbane for allegedly trafficking cocaine between September, 19, 2016 and November 2, 2017.
Duspara, a financial adviser, was allegedly earning $200,000 a year when he was arrested in 2017.
Ada, who is engaged to Maxim cover girl Joanna Hill, was travelling the world and living in a $500-a-week apartment in Surfers Paradise when he was arrested.
In the Southport Magistrates Court yesterday, Duspara’s lawyer Jason Grant, of Grant Lawyers, asked police to pay costs Duspara had incurred trying to fight the recruiting charge.
Under the Queensland law there must be at least three people involved in a crime for the group to be considered a criminal organisation.
“There was not three people to have recruited people into the organisation,” Mr Grant said.
He told the court police had not provided any information about who might have been recruited into the alleged “drug syndicate”.
Mr Grant said he was only told late on Wednesday afternoon that the recruiting charge against Duspara would be dropped.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Daniel McShane said police had originally thought there were another five people involved.
He said “up until this point” there had been a case against those five people in relation to drugs charges.
Magistrate Claire Kelly denied the costs application and said the charges and investigation had been in “good faith”.
Ada’s solicitor Danielle Heable, of Dib and Associates, said outside court: “Today’s outcome came at a considerable delay and expense to Mr Ada, but he is nonetheless happy with the result and looks forward to contesting the charges once they reach the Supreme Court.”
More than 50 witness statements in relation to the alleged drug syndicate were tendered in the magistrates court yesterday.
Not long after the pair were arrested in November 2017, tennis player Bernard Tomic posted a picture of himself with Ada and his lawyer Ahmed Dib at trendy Japanese restaurant Etsu in Mermaid Beach.
There are no suggestions Tomic was involved in the alleged drug ring.
Ada and Duspara will appear in the Supreme Court in the coming months.