Defence chips away at police testimony

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This article was published 27/10/2017 (2685 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A police decision to transport evidence to an “uncontrolled environment” for explosives testing has come under fire as defence lawyers for an accused bomber continue to suggest evidence implicating their client may have been contaminated by police.

Winnipeg Police Service officers who investigated explosive packages sent to three different addresses in the city two years ago have faced pointed questions about their handling of evidence in the case against 51-year-old Guido Amsel. As Amsel’s attempted murder trial continues in provincial court, Judge Tracey Lord is hearing details of how police responded in the wake of the July 3, 2015 River Avenue law office explosion that had been unlike other investigations they’d encountered at the time.

Patrol Sgt. Kelly Takatch testified Friday he sought advice from a superior on how best to handle the investigation after he and other officers were tasked with collecting potential evidence amid an “overwhelming” amount of debris from the explosion that seriously injured lawyer Maria Mitousis at her River Avenue law office.

That July 3, 2015 explosion was followed in quick succession by two more suspicious packages discovered that same weekend, and it meant investigators had to work quickly and thoroughly to piece everything together. During his time on the witness stand Friday, Takatch said he had “just wanted to do things right,” with the investigation, including having evidence tested and handwriting samples sent for analysis.

Takatch was one of the forensic identification officers who took swabs of Amsel’s hands and face at the Public Safety Building after he was arrested July 4, 2015 — a day after the explosion. Later, Takatch would take the swabs to a site on Springfield Road, where other officers were searching Amsel’s autobody business, to be tested for explosives. The tests were completed via the RCMP bomb unit’s ion scanner machine, which was on the front seat of a police vehicle parked outside of Amsel’s business. The initial tests came back positive for the homemade explosive hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMDT), but further lab analysis of those tests found no trace of explosives on Amsel’s hands.

Amsel’s defence lawyer, Saheel Zaman, questioned the decision to bring the swab samples to Amsel’s business for testing.

“You in fact are bringing samples of a possible suspect to the scene where it’s anticipated that there’s going to be significant amount of DNA from the accused, at his place of business. Correct?” Zaman asked during cross-examination.

Takatch agreed with Zaman’s suggestion that he could’ve asked the RCMP to test the swabs where they were being held in a secure location, and he agreed it was his decision to bring them to Springfield Road.

“Where the actual ion tester was, I’d agree with you it wasn’t a controlled environment,” he said. 

“To me, it didn’t matter because we had done a controlled sample and it was clean,” he added under further questioning.

Zaman argued the officer should have known about the likelihood of false positives using the ion scanner machine, which belonged to the RCMP. Other tests for explosives in Amsel’s vehicle all came back negative.

Amsel has pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder and explosives-related charges after three suspicious packages were mailed to his ex-wife and two law offices in July 2015. One of the packages exploded, seriously injuring lawyer Maria Mitousis, who had represented Amsel’s ex-wife, Iris, in their divorce. His trial is set to wrap up in mid-December. 

Takatch, a forensic identification specialist, testified that he wore gloves when he handled the swabs to transport them for testing with the RCMP’s ion scanner. The cotton swabs were in sterile vials within a plastic bag, and the test strips were bagged separately as well, he said. Under direct examination questioning from Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft, Takatch said he wore gloves throughout the process and changed into new gloves as he handled different items.

He had previously been responsible for gathering debris from the River Avenue explosion and piecing together scraps of yellow paper to reconstruct a note that appeared to instruct Mitousis to push a button on a device inside the package to listen to a recorded conversation. He also pieced together the bubble-wrap packaging and address label the explosive was believed to have been mailed in, and later compared the handwriting to that found at the scene of another explosion that same weekend. Two other packages containing explosives were safely detonated by police on July 4 and July 5, 2015. Messages stamped into fragments of copper were found at each of those two locations: Iris Amsel’s workplace on Washington Avenue and a law office on Stradbrook Avenue.

During a “sneak and peek” search of a different potential suspect’s home, police found a letter punch kit like the one they thought could have been used to hammer the letters into copper, but Takatch said it was disregarded as evidence when investigators saw that its font didn’t match the font of the message fragments they’d found. Takatch didn’t make any notes about that and police didn’t take photos of the letter punch kit, leading Zaman to question their version of events.

Takatch testified that in addition to gloves, he wore a protective suit and booties during the lengthy process of collecting potential evidence from the River Avenue explosion site, changing them each time he handled a different type of material — paper, plastic or metal. He said he never touched a purple and orange zipper pouch police found on Mitousis’s desk in the aftermath of the explosion. The pouch tested positive for the explosive substance triacetone triperoxide (TATP), court previously heard.

On Thursday, forensic identification officer Const. Brian Neumann was questioned by Zaman about his decision to open the plastic evidence bag containing the pouch prior to trial. The pouch was individually sealed within a separate bag but Neumann had opened an outer plastic bag that contained the pouch along with other pieces of evidence. 

Neumann said he needed to make sure the pouch, an item of interest thus far in the trial, was actually inside the larger evidence bag. The Winnipeg Police Service had labelled it “Exhibit X,” but when it came back from being tested at the RCMP lab, it was labelled as “Exhibit 5,” he said.

“Call me hyper-vigilant,” Neumann said in response to Zaman’s questions, explaining he opened the bag when he received it because he couldn’t see a label for what he had known as “Exhibit X.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca  

Twitter: @thatkatiemay

Katie May
Reporter

Katie May is a general-assignment reporter for the Free Press.

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