{"id":666889,"date":"2026-10-27T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/666889\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T14:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T14:38:10","slug":"kerry-man-pleads-not-guilty-to-five-charges-arising-from-irelands-largest-crystal-meth-seizure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/666889\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry man pleads not guilty to five charges arising from Ireland\u2019s largest crystal meth seizure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BREAKING: Kerry man James Leen has pleaded not guilty to five charges arising from the largest crystal meth seizure in the history of the state.<\/p>\n<p>43-year-old<a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiokerry.ie\/news\/james-leen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> James Leen<\/a> of Kilmorna, Listowel, formally entered pleas of not guilty to the five charges at a sitting of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courts.ie\/organisation-information\/the-special-criminal-court\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Special Criminal Court<\/a> this morning.<\/p>\n<p>He faces three possession charges and one importation charge relating to half a ton of crystal meth which was seized at Cork Port in February 2024.<\/p>\n<p>He is also charged with directing the activities of a criminal organisation over a 12-month period.<\/p>\n<p>The case is listed for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiokerry.ie\/news\/trial-date-set-at-non-jury-court-for-kerry-man-charged-over-crystal-meth-seizure-502079\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">trial next month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More to follow. This update can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiokerry.ie\/news\/kerry-man-pleads-not-guilty-to-five-charges-in-crystal-meth-case-504560\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Kerry man James Leen has pleaded not guilty to five charges arising from the largest crystal meth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-666889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}