Australian Peter Gardner fronts Chinese court on drug smuggling charges

Guangzhou: An Australian man potentially facing the death penalty in China for allegedly trafficking methamphetamine says he thought he was merely carrying performance-enhancing peptides used for sport. In explosive and detailed testimony, Peter Gardner, 26, told a court in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou that he had been duped into being a drug mule by a sophisticated international smuggling syndicate with connections reaching into baggage handlers at Sydney Airport. “This is the biggest mistake of my life,” he told the Guangzhou Intermediate Court on Thursday morning, wearing handcuffs and dressed in a light grey suit. Mr Gardner, who was born in New Zealand but has lived in Australia for the past 18 years, said he paid his supplier about $13,000 for a range of different peptides and tanning agents which were popular, he said, in Sydney’s rugby and bodybuilding circles. Instead, Mr Gardner was stopped from boarding his Sydney-bound China Southern flight from Guangzhou in November with travelling companion Kalynda Davis, after customs officials detected 30 kilograms of the drug methamphetamine, also commonly known as ice, in their bags. With a rough Australian street value of $18 million, it was the biggest single haul of the drug ever seized at the airport.