Prosecutors have won a court battle for authorities to seize a house, luxury car and more than $180,000 cash as criminal assets from a convicted Canberra drug dealer.
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Abdul Karim Nikro was sprung dealing more than $120,000 worth of cocaine to an undercover police officer in three deals in Crace between March and May of 2014.
Raids on Nikro's car and properties in Civic, Crace and Lyneham located about $230,000 in cash, 450 grams of cocaine, scales and 150 grams of cutting agent.
He was on bail at the time over two northside growhouses where police uncovered more than 200 cannabis plants.
Nikro was charged with cocaine trafficking and cultivating cannabis and jailed in 2015 for a maximum of four years and nine months.
Prosecutors had launched civil action in the ACT Supreme Court to freeze property allegedly linked to his crimes, including a Crace house, a silver Mercedes Benz, a Toyota Hilux and $180,282 cash.
But Nikro's lawyers fought against authorities' attempts to seize the house once he was convicted, seeking an exclusion order to stop it being confiscated and arguing the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions acted unlawfully.
They said the bid to assume the property was at odds with the ACT's human rights laws and amounted to double jeopardy.
Double jeopardy is the legal principle that no one may be tried or punished again for an offence for which they have already been convicted or acquitted.
Police argued the house was tainted property as Nikro, who was living in a Civic apartment at the time, had used it to store the cocaine cutting agent and scales he used to traffic the drug.
Prosecutors said the bid to seize Nikro's assets wasn't punitive, didn't amount to double punishment and was an automatic consequence of his conviction.
In a decision, published last week, Justice John Burns was satisfied Nikro had used the Crace property to prepare, store and conceal the cocaine he trafficked.
"It is probable that he chose to use the Crace property for this purpose, as opposed to his apartment in the city, because it was secure but at the same time allowed him to deny knowledge of the drugs if they were found there," he said.
Justice Burns said there was "a real and demonstrable connection" between the use of the house, which Nikro said he bought with two loans in 2013, and the offender's drug trafficking conviction.
He also found there was "unsatisfactory" evidence of Nikro's legitimate income, and of how he was able to service the two loans from that income when when he was heavily in debt in the years leading up to April 2014.
"The evidence does not convince me that the Crace property was not derived, at least in part, from the proceeds of trafficking in cocaine."
Justice Burns said the seizure of the house wasn't punishment for the trafficking offence, rather the action stripped Nikro of any material advantage from his crimes and prevented him using the property to commit further offences.
He found the seizure didn't amount to double jeopardy and did not breach human rights laws.
Nikro was ordered to pay the DPP's costs for the proceedings.
