A man who was cleared of the murder of a man in Wellington in the 1990s has been jailed for nine years for his involvement in a European drug ring.
Forty-four-year-old William Jan H. Haanstra was one of 10 people sentenced in Amsterdam last week, two years after Dutch police found seven shipping containers that were turned into prison cells and a torture chamber, NZ Herald reports.
Authorities said the containers were built with thought and precision - six of them were soundproof jail cells, and another was fitted as a torture chamber.
It's believed members of rival drug gangs would be kidnapped and held in the cells or the chamber.
The Guardian reports the torture chamber had a dentist chair with restraints, saws, pliers, secateurs and scalpels. Equipment for waterboarding and a large freezer was also found.
Dutch police came across the gang's operation when they intercepted an encrypted messaging system. The gang's operation involved multiple teams of people, fake police uniforms, traffic stops and bulletproof vests.
Members who were arrested claim they never planned to actually torture people and the cells were built just to frighten their rivals.
A Dutch public prosecutor told an Amsterdam court that the violence of the drug trade was a "repulsive, but apparently unavoidable" result of the widespread use of illegal drugs in the Netherlands, The Guardian reported.
One suspect claimed they believed the containers were being built for the purpose of growing hemp.
The suspects have denied the charges.
