Guido Amsel speaks: Accused letter bomber claims DNA evidence was planted

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This article was published 12/12/2017 (2473 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DNA evidence may have been “implanted” to implicate a 51-year-old autobody shop owner in a series of explosions targeting his ex-wife and local lawyers, the accused has testified.

Guido Amsel took the stand in his own defence Wednesday, offering the court a range of theories — from “innocent explanations” to unproven conspiracy allegations — that he said could explain why some of his DNA was found at the scenes of two explosions. Court has heard his DNA was extracted from a stain on a zippered pouch that was found in lawyer Maria Mitousis’s law office after a bomb blast blew off her right hand in 2015.

“I have not sent explosives to anybody, anytime,” Amsel said. He’s pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder, as well as aggravated assault, mischief and several explosives-related charges. He’s accused of trying to kill his ex-wife and the lawyers who represented the couple in a lengthy civil lawsuit by mailing them bombs containing a homemade explosive.

During his full day on the stand, Amsel claimed his ex-wife was responsible for the bombings, he accused an RCMP officer of bribery and said he suspected his former defence lawyer, a Crown prosecutor, police and lab analysts of planting DNA evidence against him. He spoke about his ability to transfer his DNA via his sweaty hands, his habit of licking his fingers to flip pages and his regularly bleeding nose. During his testimony, Amsel pulled a napkin from his pocket and told the Crown prosecutor “I want you to see my blood.”

He theorized his DNA could have ended up on the pouch — which police traced as being sold at Dollarama — during one of his near-weekly dollar store shopping trips with his kids. Or, he said, it could have found its way into Mitousis’s office via the documents after he reviewed documents for the civil lawsuit his ex-wife, Iris Amsel, had brought against him. Mitousis was representing Iris, and Guido Amsel had spent time at her previous law firm, Monk Goodwin, going through 400 to 600 pages, he said. He didn’t know whether the files he looked at were in Mitousis’s new office at Petersen King on the morning of the July 3, 2015 explosion.

“I have proof that the DNA is fabricated,” Amsel said during cross-examination questioning from Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft. He repeatedly suggested his former defence lawyer, Martin Glazer, knew about the DNA match “way too early” before the tests had come back from the lab. But Amsel admitted he’d “made a mistake” in his initial belief that Glazer had cut out a section of the pouch to implant false evidence, later learning that analysts at the RCMP lab had removed a section of the pouch to test it. He held up photos of the pouch for the judge to see, saying the stain was visible in one photo but not the other.

Amsel also offered different explanations for how his DNA ended up on a piece of string found outside his ex-wife’s home in the aftermath of a December 2013 explosion that damaged the front of her home, where Amsel had lived until shortly before the couple divorced. His DNA being found there only proves he lived there, he said, blaming his ex-wife.

“I had the assumption that Iris Amsel is behind it,” he said.

Under questioning from his defence lawyer Saheel Zaman, Amsel said he didn’t have knowledge of explosives, didn’t plant a bomb at his ex-wife’s home in 2013, didn’t send a note with a voice recorder to lawyer Maria Mitousis and didn’t recognize the handwriting on mailed packages that exploded.

“That’s not my writing,” he said.

Iris Amsel sued Guido to try to get him to pay her the $40,000 plus equipment costs he owed her after they dissolved their business partnership following their 2004 divorce, and Mitousis was representing her.

The accused said he suspected his ex-wife of stealing more than $4 million from their business, but he said when he reported his suspicions to the RCMP, the officer he spoke to held out his hand “like a cashier” asking for money in order to investigate, Amsel claimed. Sgt. Dan Bresciani previously testified he never asked Amsel for money. He said he decided there wasn’t enough evidence to launch a fraud investigation, and Amsel later filed a public complaint to the RCMP, which he subsequently resolved. On Wednesday, the accused claimed he was forced to sign the complaint resolution form by RCMP officers who showed up at his business, “pushed a phone against my head,” and made him listen to Sgt. Bresciani apologizing on the line. Vanderhooft noted Amsel’s public complaint didn’t mention a corrupt officer or bribery allegations.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca