Court rejects bail surety for €60m drug conspiracy accused from Iran
Fiona Magennis
A Dutch national who offered a €30,000 surety for an Iranian man accused of conspiring to import almost €60 million worth of cocaine into Ireland has told the Special Criminal Court that all she knew about the allegations against her friend was what she had read in a newspaper article.
Sadaf Piroozram (52), who offered to lodge a €30,000 surety for Ali Ghasemi Mazidi (50), also said during cross-examination on Tuesday that she knew the defendant had travelled to Ireland, Colombia and Iran in the early months of 2024, but did not know the sequence of those trips or how many times he travelled to and from Ireland between January and March of that year.
Mazidi is currently awaiting trial, charged with conspiring to import controlled drugs on dates between February 27 and March 14 2024, within the State.
He was previously granted bail in the High Court, on his own bond of €1,000 with an independent surety of €30,000.
Rejecting Mazidi’s surety application at the three-judge, non-jury court on Tuesday, Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo, presiding with Judge Elma Sheahan and Judge Fiona Lydon, said Piroozram was “unable to give clear evidence” about Mazidi’s “travel plans generally” and his actual movements between January and March 2024.
He said that since the defendant’s arrest, she does not know and has not made enquiries about the nature of the allegations other than what she had read in a newspaper.
It could not be said that the surety had weighed up the risk involved, the judge said.
In submissions to the court earlier on Tuesday, Michael O’Higgins, representing Mazidi, said that one concern raised during a previous hearing was that the proposed surety at that time, David Kaipur, Ms Piroozram’s partner, resides in the Netherlands and was therefore not in a position to discharge his obligations as a surety.
He said he hoped to “avail of technology” to assuage these concerns through the use of an app which would allow gardaí and Piroozram to monitor Mazidi through his phone. He said it was also proposed to use closed-circuit television Wi-Fi cameras placed in “agreed strategic locations” outside and inside the defendant’s nominated address while on bail to allow for 24/7 monitoring.
Counsel noted that these measures were not “failsafe” but said no system ever was.
In his evidence to the court, Detective Sergeant Stephen Fuller told Tessa White, prosecuting, that there were “considerable restrictions” on gardaí when it comes to utilising any kind of tracking app. He said if a nominated member of the gardaí were to join the proposed app to monitor the accused, then that would involve sharing their location.
Regarding the app, Det Sgt Fuller said he would have “no faith in it”, and it was something he “couldn’t agree to”.
Delivering judgment, Mr Justice Naidoo said there was “no reality” to gardaí becoming involved in the use of what he described as a “family app” to monitor Mazidi.
He said the court was not satisfied that the relationship between Piroozram and Mazidi was sufficiently proximate and close to allow her to act as surety.
Last February, the State challenged the independent surety offered for Mazidi by fellow Dutch national Kuiper, a teacher who said he had sold his home to raise the €30,000 needed for Mazidi’s High Court bail.
Counsel for the State, Dean Kelly, described a suggestion by Kuiper that he did not know what offence his friend is charged with as “preposterous” and “unbelievable”.
Counsel raised concerns about Kuiper’s lack of proximity to the accused and his inability to know whether the defendant was attempting to flee the jurisdiction because he lives in the Netherlands and would not be residing with him.
Kuiper was rejected as an independent surety for the defendant.
Giving evidence earlier today, Piroozram told the court that she resides in Rotterdam with Kuiper, with whom she has a registered partnership, which she described as being "the same as marriage" in Holland.
Piroozram said her parents were originally from Iran, but she was born in Rotterdam and carries a Dutch passport. The witness said she had worked as a general manager for a restaurant chain for many years but left in 2023 because of ill-health due to an autoimmune disease.
Piroozram said she had known Mazidi since she was 20 and described him as a “hardworking guy” who had owned a restaurant. She said when Mazidi lived in Holland, she saw him every week and they spoke on the phone every day.
Mr Mazidi, with an address in the Netherlands, was one of ten men arrested by gardai in March 2024 during operations in the villages of Tragumna and Leap near Skibbereen in west Cork, where a jeep, camper van, articulated truck, and rigid inflatable boat were seized as part of the suspected drug smuggling operation.
After gardaí intercepted the vehicles, they discovered a large quantity of nautical equipment, including satellite phones, GPS devices, radios, control panels and wetsuits.
A previous court sitting heard that the ship the rigid inflatable boat (RIB) was attempting to “rendezvous” with, passed an area in Denmark in mid-March. Cocaine weighing 840kgs and valued at between €58 and €59 million was subsequently found washed up in the area.
Mazidi, along with Sean Curran (37), with an address at Carrickyheenan, Aughnacloy, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh and Raul Tabares Garcia (48), of Cadiz in Spain, are still awaiting trial charged with the same offence.
Seven of Mazidi’s co-accused have already pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a combined 70 years in prison last December.
They are Mario Angel Del Rio Sanz (45) of no fixed abode but from Spain; Anuar Rahui Chairi (42) of Malaga in Spain; Aleksandar Milic (27) with an address in Belgrade in Serbia; Kiumaars Ghabiri (52) with an address in Rotterdam in the Netherlands; Pedro Pablo Ojeda Ortega (36) of Cadiz; and Angel Serran Padilla (40) of Malaga.
