Australian man Dino Rossetto will spend five years in a Cambodian jail for drug offences after the country’s Supreme Court in Phnom Penh upheld his conviction.
The 51-year-old Rossetto was sentenced to five years jail by a court in Sihanoukville in January 2018 under Article 40 of the country’s drug laws. He initially filed an appeal with Cambodia’s Appeal Court, but that court upheld the guilty verdict in July 2018.
Rossetto, from the New South Wales town of Orange, was arrested in an undercover sting by Cambodian police in September 2017 after he offered to sell about $US70 ($100) worth of drugs to an undercover police officer.
Police subsequently searched his apartment and found about 40 grams of a white powder, believed to be crystal methamphetamine, as well as scales.
The Australian man claimed in court last week that the drugs were not his and that he had been set up by a Cambodian man, Tiger, with whom he had a dispute over the sale of a motor bike, according to the Phnom Penh Post.
Rossetto and his family have opened a restaurant in Sihanoukville but his family did not appear in court on Monday when a panel of judges handed down its verdict.
Reading out the verdict, Justice Chan Rainsy said the Supreme Court had decided to uphold the decision of the lower two courts to convict Rossetto.
“After listening to the conclusion of the prosecutor, after listening to the conclusion of the lawyers and the complaint, after listening to the answers of the accused Dino Rossetto, the court says that the Appeal Court decision on July 13th, 2019 is right according to the law,” he said.
Rossetto will remain in jail, the judge said. Brisbane Times
