Alleged $60M drug importer Clinton George Ribbon fails in bid to be released on bail ahead of third trial over charges

He’s been tried twice, won an appeal and already spent six years of a record 17-year sentence behind bars – but a court has ruled none of that warrants giving an alleged drug importer bail before his third trial, because he may flee overseas.

• Record sentence, over $60 million drug haul, overturned by appeals court
• How to get the most of your Advertiser digital subscription

An Adelaide businessman given a record 17-year drug crime sentence – which was overturned on appeal – must stay in prison pending his retrial because he remains “a serious risk” of fleeing overseas, a court says.

Clinton George Ribbon is scheduled to stand trial for a third time in August, having again denied helping import $60m worth of drug-making chemicals, disguised as cleaning products, into Australia.

On Tuesday, he asked the District Court to release him from custody, where he has been since his arrest in October 2014, but Judge Jo-Anne Deuter refused his request.

She said that, while Ribbon’s bid for a retrial had succeeded in the Court of Criminal Appeal, that panel of judges had also considered and denied his request for freedom.

“Importantly, that court had the advantage of reviewing all of the evidence in the matter,” she said.

“I’m not satisfied that there’s been a change in circumstances such that I can come to a different conclusion … your alleged offending was grave and you are a serious risk of absconding while on bail.”

Ribbon, 63, of Norwood, has pleaded not guilty to importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled precursor, namely 13.5kg of pseudoephedrine.

Prosecutors allege he was “a principal organiser and facilitator” in the effort to bring the chemicals in from Thailand which, if diluted into methylamphetamine, would have had a street value of $60 million.

Ribbon’s second trial – his first ended in a mistrial – heard Australian Federal Police intercepted the shipment and replaced the chemicals with Dilmah tea.

However, that jury’s guilty verdict was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal, which ruled the trial judge had improperly allowed prejudicial recordings to be played.

It said the legal definition of “import” required an alleged offender to have directly dealt with the substance.

It further ruled that the recordings had captured conversations in which Ribbon was allegedly trying to get his hands on pseudoephedrine, but were not proof he had succeeded.

In her ruling on bail on Tuesday, Judge Deuter said Ribbon’s counsel had provided “further information” about their client but it did not warrant a change of his custodial status.

She remanded him in custody to face his third trial in August