Officer’s evidence-handling in focus at accused bomber’s trial

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The handling of evidence during a police investigation into three explosive packages mailed within the city two years ago is being questioned as the officer responsible for bagging the evidence continued his detailed testimony Wednesday.

Winnipeg Police Service forensic identification officer Const. Brian Neumann returned to the witness stand, where he spent most of Tuesday, in the attempted murder trial of 51-year-old Guido Amsel.

Amsel faces five counts of attempted murder and several explosives-related charges connected to three explosive packages that were mailed to his ex-wife, his ex-wife’s lawyer and his own lawyer in July 2015 during a bitter divorce proceeding.

Neumann was tasked with photographing and logging the items collected at three different crime scenes where suspicious packages were found over the same weekend, July 3-5, 2015. One of the packages exploded at the Petersen King River Avenue law office, severely injuring lawyer Maria Mitousis, who had represented Guido Amsel’s ex-wife, Iris. After that explosion, investigators found a purple and orange zipper pouch on Mitousis’s desk with Styrofoam inside that had been cut to fit. The pouch later tested positive for explosives, and it was the focus of Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft’s direct examination questioning of Neumann Wednesday.

Neumann had just removed the pouch from its sealed evidence bag to show the court so it could be entered as an exhibit when Amsel interrupted from the prisoner’s box and asked to speak to his lawyer, Saheel Zaman, who later asked Neumann to bring the bagged pouch closer to Amsel so he could see it. Amsel asked Neumann to rotate the pouch so he could see it from all sides before he thanked him and sat back down in the prisoner’s box.

A test strip that was used to swab the pouch tested positive for Triacetone Triperoxide, or TATP, a homemade explosive. A copy of those test results was also filed as an exhibit, but how the evidence was handled and examined remains in question.

Neumann has been explaining to provincial court Judge Tracey Lord how he dealt with the evidence collected from each of the three explosives sites at 252 River Ave., 599 Washington Ave. and 280 Stradbrook Ave. Suspicious packages mailed to the latter two addresses were safely detonated by police. He told court he treated each of the three crime scenes as a separate case and stored the evidence separately. They were also kept separate from items seized during two police searches of Amsel’s home and business, he said.

“You have them all separate at all times?” Vanderhooft asked.

“Correct,” Neumann replied.

He also testified he was wearing gloves when he handled, photographed and examined the items, and that the bags were kept sealed until he opened them in court Wednesday. Apart from police testing and analysis of the items, there were no requests from defence lawyers, the court or anyone else to open a sealed evidence bag for testing, he said.

Neumann is set to be cross-cross-examined by defence lawyers Zaman and Jeremy Kostiuk Thursday. The defence may raise the possibility of contamination of evidence as an argument.

Amsel has maintained that he is not guilty of all charges against him and is presumed innocent. His trial is scheduled to wrap up in mid-December.

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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