The kingpin at the head of a huge international cocaine trafficking conspiracy failed in a bid to serve his time in cushier conditions.
Mehmet Baybasin was at the top of an enormous drugs trafficking gang based in Liverpool and London responsible for smuggling huge quantities of Class A drugs from South America to the UK. Baybasin has spent years trying to fight his designation as a Category A prisoner, meaning he has been deemed a threat to the public or national security should he escape.
Baybasin made an application to the High Court to demand a judicial review into the decision of prison authorities to refuse an oral hearing about his categorisation in December last year.
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Baybasin, now 59, was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine and concealing criminal property at Liverpool Crown Court in 2011 and sentenced to 30 years by Judge David Aubrey, KC. The court had heard that between 2008 and 2009 the organised crime group concocted a "sophisticated" plot to get a 40 tonne shipment of cocaine from Colombia to Britain.
Much of the conspiracy was run via a telephone box on Old Hall Street in Liverpool City Centre, which the head of the Liverpool end of the conspiracy, Eldonian Village man Paul Taylor, used as his "office". Taylor used the innocuous looking phone box to make regular calls to Baybasin at the London end of the gang.
Their plan involved bringing the drugs over from Central America by sea – Honduras was considered before Venezuela was favoured as a casting off point for the shipments – with the illegal loads stashed in tins of fish or wood pellets.
SOCA officers listened in on calls between Taylor and Baybasin as they talked of ‘36s’ (£36,000 for a kg of cocaine) and buying ‘200 bits’ (shipments of 200kg).
They watched from afar as Taylor headed to the capital to meet Baybasin in an Elstree cafe and they looked on in astonishment as visitors to Taylor’s home – which was bugged – parked around the corner and then clambered over his back gate in the hope of not being seen.
Three times the gang tried to make the imports a success, but internal squabbles and mix-ups meant that despite hundreds of thousands of pounds changing hands the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) got in to stop them before the plot could come off. However they tried again to arrange the enormous cocaine shipment.
Baybasin, who lived in Edgeware, Middlesex, acted as the gang's international connection and travelled to South America regularly for meetings with cartel representatives Ricardo Ocampo, a Colombian, and Venezuelan Javier Oponte.
According to a written judgment on Baybasin's application, Deputy High Court Judge Dexter Dias, KC, wrote: "It was the prosecution's case that Mr Baybasin provided the link to Ocampo who was, in turn, the link to drugs supplies in Central America. There was a stockpile of 40 tonnes of cocaine available to be shipped from abroad.
"This was highly organised international drug trafficking on a vast scale. The Court of Appeal endorsed the trial judge's conclusion that Mehmet Baybasin was near the top of the supply chain and distribution organisation, and was not only controlling and directing operations in London but also had international connections."
Judge Dias noted that Baybasin had been described as having "made no progress" in prison and "demonstrated no insight" into his offending. In November last year, the Category A Team of the Long Term and High Security Prisons Group (CAT) determined that there were no "coherent or relevant grounds" to show that Baybasin had reduced his risk levels enough to justify downgrading him to Category B status.
The court heard that Baybasin still denies he is guilty of the offences he was jailed for. Judge Dias wrote: "He remains steadfast in his denial of culpability. That is his right. But it has significant consequences for those who subsequently must assess the risk he poses to the public.
"Critically, for the purposes of this judicial review claim, it is impossible to litigate this matter at an oral hearing. The court cannot go behind the jury's verdict; that would be wrong in principle.
"The claimant's appeals against both conviction and sentence were rejected by the Court of Appeal. On close analysis, there are no disputed background facts that materially affect the question of risk."
Matthew Stanbury, representing Baybasin, argued that the CAT team had failed to properly consider a psychological report by a Dr Pratt which suggested his client had not shown repeat offending or "paralleling" behaviour in custody and had gotten on well with other inmates at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire.
Judge Dias said: "However, one must return to the nature of the crimes proved against the claimant. This was a conspiracy to import vast amounts of dangerous drugs. The claimant's role was to act as a liaison between the London and Liverpool ends of the criminal operation and indeed between this country and South America and the drug cartel there.
"He had to cooperate closely with a variety of people from different backgrounds. Clearly, Dr Pratt has not appreciated or appreciated sufficiently the significance of this course of conduct and how his behaviour in prison does not suggest that it could not be repeated, which could potentially put the public at risk."
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