'Mr Asia' trial ‘Lawyer knew a great deal’

Press, 1 June 1981, Page 7

'Mr Asia' trial ‘Lawyer knew a great deal’

NZPA Lancaster An Auckland lawyer, Karen Soich, knew more about the operations of the “Mr Asia” drugs syndicate than some of its members, the drugs-murder trial has heard.

The Whangarei-born woman, aged 25, who became the lover of the alleged syndicate boss, another New Zealander, Alexander Sinclair. aged 36, knew “a great deal” about the syndicate, the Court was told."

Her level of knowledge was such that even a small degree of participation would make her a member of the conspiracy which formed the basis of" the two drugs charges in the trial indictment. the chief Crown Counsel, Mr Michael Maguire, Q.C., told the court.

Continuing his final speech to the jury, at the end of the twentieth week of the Lancaster Castle trial. Mr Maguire told the jury Soich was a barrister and as such would be expected “to know right from wrong.”

Soich, who denied two drugs charges, has maintained that she took no part in the conspiracy and was merely Sinclair’s girl-friend.

But Mr Maguire said: "She knew a great deal more, in the submission of the Crown, than some of those who actually joined this syndicate in England.

“When a person is possessed of a great deal of knowledge of what is going on it doesn't take much on that person's part to make them a member of the conspiracy.

“It is the Crown’s case that Soich had a great deal of knowledge.”

Soich met Sinclair when she helped prepare his successful defence against a heroin importing charge in New Zealand in 1978.

She worked with him while he was on remand and in the process acquired knowledge which as a lawyer she could not be obliged to disclose. “Blit one thing which the defendant Soich did know was that the name of the defendant was Terry Clark,” Mr Maguire said. In Los Angeles she had written out a quasi-legal authority for Sinclair in the name of Peter Ronald Heyfron, one of his many aliases, he told the jury. She had claimed the action was innocent. But after her arrest she

denied she had heard the name Heyfron, had seen it written down or had seen a passport in that name bearing Sinclair's photograph, Mr Maguire said.

The senior members of the syndicate had placed emphasis on concealing their true identities, he said.

“Here is this New Zealand barrister assisting a man she knows formerly as TerryCar. whose "name was changed to Sinclair by deed poll by producing a false document. And by producing that document, she was assisting to disguise his true identity," Mr Maguire said.

He asked the jury: "Do you not think if "she had knowledge of what he was up to. what his job was . . ..mthat that was furthering his ends?

“If that was in all innocence, why did she deny it?” Mr Maguire told the jury in detail about the testimony of Los Angeles pimp and drug dealer Benjamin Bennett on a lengthy series of conversations about buying cocaine which took place at the Beverley Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles where both Soich and Sinclair were staying.

"Karen Soich ' may not

have been there all the time, but she was there a great deal of the time.” Mr Maguire said. "If she did nothing but listen she heard a great deal.

"And if she said, as Bennett claimed, that Sinclair was a drugs dealer, that would be nothing less than the truth of the matter.” :

Earlier. Mr Maguire drew a sharp reaction from the third New Zealander in the dock, a Wellington man Enroll Hincksman. aged 32. when he suggested Hincksman had- been told about the murder of Martin Johnstone.

As Mr Maguire asked the jury if it thought Sinclair would not have told his "trusted lieutenant" when he had told other syndicate members, Hincksman shouted out: “Well, he didn't."

Clearly under strain, he rose in’ the dock minutes later to apologise to the trial judge, Mrs Justice Rose Heilbron.

. "It's just . . . how much can they pile on?” he said, gesturing at Mr Maguire. ‘Tve never conspired . . Hincksman. who normally sits in the dock impassively beside Soich, was told by her Honour that he should tak to his lawyers.