Justice at last: Duped 'drug mules' freed in Hong Kong after being detained for attempting to smuggle crystal meth to Australia and New Zealand

Six foreign nationals who spent a total of more than seven years behind bars in Hong Kong awaiting trial for drug smuggling were freed Friday by a High Court judge who told the city’s law enforcers they must target the “major miscreants” behind the drug trade because “they are the evil ones”.

The so-called “drug mules” – four men and two women, all elderly or middle aged – had been accused of smuggling the addictive stimulant “crystal meth” from Hong Kong to Australia or New Zealand and were arrested as they were about to board flights at Hong Kong International Airport.

The six – German-born Australian resident Jorg Ulitzka, 80, Melbourne woman Luu Suong Thu, 44, US citizens William Moorman, 47, and Celia Eberhard, 68, a Northern Irish man Brendan Toner, 62, and Dutch national Hendrikus Teutscher, 75 – walked free after the prosecution offered no evidence.

Watch: Alleged drug smugglers cleared of charges in Hong Kong

“There’s a lesson to be learnt from this … Never have the words been truer than now that justice delayed is justice denied. The decision to terminate these six cases ... has taken too long,” said High Court judge Mr Justice Kevin Zervos.