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Drug dealer Martin Garnett returns to Australia after 20 years in overseas prisons
AUSTRALIA'S longest-serving drug dealer Martin Garnett is back in Sydney after spending more than 20 years in overseas prisons.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the convicted heroin smuggler, 47, is behind bars at Silverwater jail after an online fundraising campaign secured his return last year.
He is expected to be released within 18 months.
Asked if she was glad to have her son back in Australia, mother Lyn said: "Of course, at least I can see his face."
The 71-year-old helped raise nearly $20,000 through online crowd-funding service Pozible - needed to pay for flights and accommodation for Mr Garnett and two Australian government guards to travel from the US.
He was serving time in an Indiana prison for mailing drugs from his cell in a Bangkok prison, where he had been incarcerated for heroin smuggling.
"He's happier than he's ever been in his life, he's been doing a lot of studying and he's got a lot of ideas about what he's going to do after prison," Ms Garnett said.
"He's working really hard to get good points on the board."
The high profile convict arrived in Sydney on November 2, after boarding the last plane out of LAX on the day of a shooting that left a Homeland Security agent dead and a further seven people injured.
"It was such a relief … I cried rivers before I got him here but when was here, my job was done,'' Ms Garnett said.
"I've written to him nearly every day for 21 years, I miss him."
Garnett was sentenced to death by Thai authorities in 1993 after he was caught at Bangkok Airport trying to board a plane for New Zealand with 4.7kg of heroin strapped to his body.
The former Sydney luxury car dealer's sentence was later reduced to 40 years and eventually pardoned in 2011.
But later that same year he was shifted to an Indiana prison and sentenced to a further 57 months imprisonment after being found guilty of mailing drugs from his cell inside Klong Prem prison to the US.
It is believed he called on the assistance of crooked guards inside the prison.
The US judge that signed off on Martin Garnett's transfer to NSW took into account his remorse and an apparent conversion to Islam.
"That's what saved his life, stopping and praying five times a day," Lyn Garnett said.
A spokesman for NSW Corrective Services yesterday said Garnett could be released as early as May 2015.
"I can confirm that he is at Silverwater," the spokesman said.
"He was sentenced to six years, nine months as the top of the sentence which expires in May 2017 and a non-parole of four years, nine months."
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...overseas-prisons/story-fni0cx12-1226784469079
AUSTRALIA'S longest-serving drug dealer Martin Garnett is back in Sydney after spending more than 20 years in overseas prisons.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the convicted heroin smuggler, 47, is behind bars at Silverwater jail after an online fundraising campaign secured his return last year.
He is expected to be released within 18 months.
Asked if she was glad to have her son back in Australia, mother Lyn said: "Of course, at least I can see his face."
The 71-year-old helped raise nearly $20,000 through online crowd-funding service Pozible - needed to pay for flights and accommodation for Mr Garnett and two Australian government guards to travel from the US.
He was serving time in an Indiana prison for mailing drugs from his cell in a Bangkok prison, where he had been incarcerated for heroin smuggling.
"He's happier than he's ever been in his life, he's been doing a lot of studying and he's got a lot of ideas about what he's going to do after prison," Ms Garnett said.
"He's working really hard to get good points on the board."
The high profile convict arrived in Sydney on November 2, after boarding the last plane out of LAX on the day of a shooting that left a Homeland Security agent dead and a further seven people injured.
"It was such a relief … I cried rivers before I got him here but when was here, my job was done,'' Ms Garnett said.
"I've written to him nearly every day for 21 years, I miss him."
Garnett was sentenced to death by Thai authorities in 1993 after he was caught at Bangkok Airport trying to board a plane for New Zealand with 4.7kg of heroin strapped to his body.
The former Sydney luxury car dealer's sentence was later reduced to 40 years and eventually pardoned in 2011.
But later that same year he was shifted to an Indiana prison and sentenced to a further 57 months imprisonment after being found guilty of mailing drugs from his cell inside Klong Prem prison to the US.
It is believed he called on the assistance of crooked guards inside the prison.
The US judge that signed off on Martin Garnett's transfer to NSW took into account his remorse and an apparent conversion to Islam.
"That's what saved his life, stopping and praying five times a day," Lyn Garnett said.
A spokesman for NSW Corrective Services yesterday said Garnett could be released as early as May 2015.
"I can confirm that he is at Silverwater," the spokesman said.
"He was sentenced to six years, nine months as the top of the sentence which expires in May 2017 and a non-parole of four years, nine months."
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...overseas-prisons/story-fni0cx12-1226784469079
