Surgeon cleared of selling drugs for P

Xiao-Zhong Chen

A jury took just 25 minutes to find an Auckland cardiologist not guilty of selling Telfast for the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Xiao-Zhong Chen, was facing seven charges of supplying pseudoephedrine, a precursor substance found in Telfast, between November 20, 2003, and August 30, 2004.

The Crown said he sold the 22,000 packets of Telfast decongestant tablets knowing that they were to be turned into the drug P - or methamphetamine.

But Mr Chen said he believed the drugs were being exported to a pharmaceutical company in China.

The Crown prosecutor David McNaughton gave his closing arguments this morning.

He said although Mr Chen was a highly respected cardiologist, he had not been included in New Zealand's medical circles because he was foreign.

"He had been held back and he had to prove himself to the old boys' club."

Chen had graduated from Chinese medical school in 1984 but had four times failed examinations in New Zealand to become a specialist.

"He is a decent, honest, hard-working man with a burning ambition to become a specialist," Mr McNaughton said.

"This meant the accused was still working in the public hospital system while his other colleagues were out playing golf."

But earlier in the three-day trial witnesses painted Mr Chen as a naive, self-absorbed man who had no idea about the black market trade for pseudoephedrine and genuinely thought he was helping distribute quality medications to Chinese sufferers.

- HERALD STAFF