User:rorynoonanDate:19/06/2013Time:08:29:17Edition:19/06/2013WedEchoWed190613Page:1Color:
EE - V1
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2013
RRP: e1.50
EDITION NO. 34,942
Serving Cork for 120 years
Drug grower brought here from abroad A MAN from Lithuania who was brought to Cork to tend to cannabis growing in an elaborate 80-foot underground bunker in a remote area was jailed for five years yesterday. Adas Backovas was one of three people in separate cases before Judge Patrick J Moran on drug charges at Cork Circuit Criminal Court who between them were sentenced to 16 years in prison. The court heard that Backovas was recruited through a friend of a friend in Lithuania last Christmas. He was given a ticket to fly to Cork where he was met by a man who drove him to a remote forest area 19.06.13 in Ballyvourney, where he lived in a mobile Recommended home over the 24-metre retail price long bunker for three €1.50 months tending to the
Lithuanian man given ticket to fly to Cork
215 cannabis until he was caught last March. It was noted that the defendant really did not know where he was during this time was and that his role in the operation was one of gardener. ● In a second case yesterday, a Chinese man said to be living in virtual slavery at a cannabis-growing warehouse in Rathcormac with the doors locked from the outside was jailed for four years. Judge Moran said “it was terrible to think this can happen in Ireland in 2012.” ● In a third case, a seven-year sentence was given to a man with an address in Cobh who pleaded guilty to a charge of having heroin for sale or supply at Knockcullen East, Killeens. ● See P6 for full court reports.
Adas Backovas, right, who was brought in specially from Lithuania to Cork to tend cannabis plants in an 80-foot underground bunker, underneath the caravan pictured.
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