THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Suspected Asian drug syndicate leader who has been compared to Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is fighting extradition to Australia, claiming he won’t would not benefit from a fair trial.

Tse Chi Lop, a Canadian national of Chinese origin, was arrested in January at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at the request of Australian police while in transit from Taiwan to Canada.

He has denied committing wrongdoing and is challenging the extradition with his lawyer, arguing that Australian authorities essentially organized his deportation from Taiwan to Canada on a flight with a stopover in the Netherlands so that he could be arrested there. .

As Australia has concluded extradition treaties with the Netherlands and Canada, Tse’s lawyer argued in court on Tuesday that Dutch extradition policies were more advantageous for law enforcement Australian.

“While Australia has been involved in the improper surrender of my client to the Netherlands, their fair trial rights have already been violated,” lawyer Andre Seebregts told Reuters after the hearing. He asked the judges to investigate the circumstances of the arrest before deciding on extradition.

Prosecutors said the circumstances of Tse’s deportation from Taiwan were irrelevant.

Australian investigators claim Tse’s organization dominates the $ 70 billion a year drug trade in Asia-Pacific.

Jeremy Douglas, representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United Nations anti-drug agency UNODC, told Reuters in 2019 that “Tse Chi Lop is in the league of El Chapo or maybe Pablo Escobar “, referring to Latin America’s most notorious drug lords.

Tse, 57, spoke briefly in court to protest his innocence.

“The mass media calls me a kingpin on drugs, but that’s not true,” the ANP news agency told the judges through interpreters. He added that he feared Australian judges were biased against him.

The Rotterdam court is expected to rule on the extradition request on July 2 or order further investigations into the circumstances of Tse’s arrest.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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