Australian jockey Anthony Bannister escapes death sentence for now
Date June 18, 2015 - 6:39PM
Philip Wen
China correspondent for Fairfax Media
Anthony Bannister arrives at the Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court on Thursday. Photo: Sanghee Liu
Guangzhou: Former Australian jockey Anthony Roger Bannister has been handed a suspended death sentence by a Guangzhou court after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle three kilograms of crystal methamphetamine out of China.
Bannister, 43, stared vacantly at the court interpreter as the judgement was read out in a hearing on Thursday, before saying he would immediately appeal.
An official from the Australian Consulate in Guangzhou outside court for Anthony Bannister's sentencing. Photo: Sanghee Liu
Suspended death sentences in China are usually commuted to life imprisonment after a period served with no further crimes committed; in Bannister's case, it is two years.
"I object to the punishment," Bannister, dressed in an ill-fitting red t-shirt, black shorts and blue slippers, told the court. "I want to appeal. I reject everything on that [judgement]."
He left the court, handcuffed and flanked by two police officers, shaking his head.
Outside Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court on Thursday. Photo: Sanghee Liu
Bannister was stopped from boarding his China Southern flight to Sydney on March 11 last year after customs officers detected the drugs, also known as ice, stuffed in eight ladies' handbags contained in his luggage.
The court judge, in delivering his verdict, said the amount Bannister had attempted to traffick was enough for the death penalty, but took into account the possibility that he was acting under the instigation of others.
Bannister's brother James told Fairfax Media before the verdict that they would appeal any guilty verdict given the court had not been provided a trail of emails which corroborated his brother's version of events – that he was an unwitting victim of an elaborate scam.
A younger Anthony Bannister (left) at work. Photo: Supplied
"I'm innocent of any drug-smuggling whatsoever," Bannister told the court earlier in his closing statement on Thursday. "I'm a victim of a big scam."
Bannister, who showed promise as a young jockey in Adelaide, told the court during his trial in October that three men he identified as "Justin", "KC" and "John Law" had convinced him he was entitled to a lucrative divorce settlement, having split from his ex-wife, a Filipino woman he met while living in Japan.
After being told to travel to Guangzhou in March last year to sign a series of documents relating to the purported settlement, he was asked by "KC" to bring back a suitcase with him as a favour. He said he never looked in the suitcase, which contained the drug-filled handbags.
Australian jockey Anthony Bannister. Photo: Supplied
"I had no knowledge of the drugs," he said in the October trial. "I had no knowledge of the suitcase until March 10 ... until the night before I left."
But prosecutors said Mr Bannister's account was "conflicting and illogical", and that he chose to smuggle drugs because he was unemployed. The prosecutors recommended the death penalty, to be carried out promptly.
Bannister is one of 12 Australians detained in China on serious drug charges that potentially attract the death penalty. Bengali Sherrif is also appealing a suspended death sentence while the others are awaiting trials or verdicts.
The cases centre around southern Guangdong province, increasingly favoured by international trafficking syndicates as a major manufacturing hub for synthetic drugs due to its international transport links and ready access to precursor chemicals. o
A number of the other Australians in drug trouble in Guangzhou have also claimed they have been scammed by the international drug rings, including Sydney man Peter Gardner, who told a court last month that he was tricked into thinking he was carrying performance-enhancing peptides, and not crystal meth.
