Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2004
Source: West Australian (Australia)
Copyright: 2004 West Australian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.thewest.com.au
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/495
Author: Sean Cowan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

DRUG DEALER CHALLENGES ASSET GRAB

A NOTORIOUS Victorian criminal serving seven years jail for drug dealing 
has challenged WA's tough criminal property confiscation laws in a bid to 
keep his assets.

If successful, he would open big loopholes in the laws and could force the 
State to abandon its efforts to take the assets of some convicted drug dealers.

Darren John Hafner, 36, pleaded guilty to heroin and methylamphetamine 
charges after a joint operation between WA and Victorian police tracked his 
efforts to supply drugs to WA dealers in 2001.

But the plumber refused to give up his assets, including a house in 
Victoria, a Harley-Davidson motorbike, cash, jewellery and electrical 
goods, and launched constitutional challenges to WA's laws.

His wife has also won Family Court orders in Victoria that have seen the 
property transferred to her name.

Hafner's lawyer Stephen Shirrefs SC has told the WA Supreme Court that WA's 
criminal property confiscation laws are unconstitutional.

In WA, the State can take the assets of anyone declared a drug trafficker 
by the court.

Criminals are declared drug traffickers if they are convicted of possessing 
or dealing in more than a set amount.

But Mr Shirrefs claimed the law was inconsistent with usual judicial power, 
saying judges were simply required to "rubber-stamp" the confiscation 
applications.

HE also argued that it was beyond the power of the State Government to 
confiscate property outside WA.  The Constitution only allowed the State to 
make laws that affected the peace and good order of WA, he said.

University of Notre Dame law lecturer Ben Clarke said that success by 
Hafner would undermine WA's property confiscation laws.

One argument would allow drug dealers to keep any property they had outside 
WA while the other would mean being declared a drug trafficker would not 
automatically allow the seizure of assets.

Hafner has been linked to some of Victoria's most notorious criminals, 
including Mark Moran, the dead half-brother of recently murdered gangster 
Jason Moran.

He was named at an inquest as the last man to see Mark Moran alive - at a 
drug deal just before he was killed in his Essendon driveway in 2000.

The case is likely to be decided mid-year.
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