Four bombs, 19 criminal charges and 40 witnesses later, Amsel trial wraps up, awaits judge’s verdict

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This article was published 18/12/2017 (2567 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Winnipeg auto mechanic awaits a verdict, after a provincial court judge spent the fall hearing from more than 40 witnesses about four bombs he’s accused of building and mailing to his alleged targets.

Guido Amsel, 51, has pleaded not guilty to 19 criminal charges, including five counts of attempted murder.

His trial wrapped up Tuesday afternoon in front of Judge Tracey Lord, who reserved her decision after hearing from the Crown that she should “not be fooled” by Amsel’s claims of innocence, and from the defence that Amsel is just a man trying to understand why he’s been wrongly accused.

Defence lawyer Saheel Zaman argued Amsel’s conspiracy theories and suggestions he may have been framed or evidence may have been planted should not be used against him.

Amsel testified last week he believed his DNA, which was discovered at two of the explosion scenes, could have been planted. He blamed his ex-wife, Iris Amsel, suggesting she was the real bomber. He admitted he wrote a letter to the minister of justice accusing the Crown prosecutor, his former defence lawyer and police of wrongdoing.

Zaman said the letter is of “negligible value” in court.

“What he thought happened is consistent with somebody who’s innocent… and is trying to come up with rationalizations,” the lawyer said. “It’s indicative of a man that’s trying to make sense of why he’s been charged with something he didn’t do.”

The accused maintains he is not guilty of sending bombs to his ex-wife and local lawyers during a legal dispute he and Iris Amsel had following their divorce and dissolution of their business partnership.

“We know, based on his evidence, he had moved on. He was in a good place,” Zaman said, noting he had a good family life with his second wife and their children. Zaman argued Amsel had a history of using the proper channels, including the police and the courts, when he had an “axe to grind,” suggesting he didn’t build bombs.

Crown prosecutor Chris Vanderhooft said that argument “really doesn’t add up.”

Amsel’s explanations, Vanderhooft said, “are so full of holes that it’s not believable.”

“Mr. Amsel is not simply the victim of coincidence,” Vanderhooft said. “He sent those bombs.”

The Crown’s theory of the case is Amsel, who divorced his wife, Iris Amsel, in 2004, had a “long-standing belief” she was stealing from him and believed she and her lawyer, Maria Mitousis, had bought off Amsel’s own lawyer.

The RCMP declined to launch a criminal investigation into Amsel’s fraud complaint against his ex-wife.

The first explosion, in December 2013, happened two days after Amsel was ordered to pay extended child support to his ex-wife for their son who was away in post-secondary school. The blast happened overnight and damaged the front of Iris Amsel’s home in the RM of St. Clements.

Amsel’s DNA was found on a string at the scene of the explosion.

The Crown suggested it was a “trip wire” meant to trigger the bomb when Iris Amsel or her boyfriend unplugged their car in the morning. The defence argued there’s no evidence of a trip wire and has put forward several explanations for why Amsel’s DNA would be found on a string outside the home where he once lived.

“All of his evidence is contrived. It is convenient and it defies belief or common sense,” Vanderhooft said.

In the summer of 2015 — a week before an auction of equipment, followed by the division of the profits so Amsel could repay his ex-wife more than $40,000 he owed her — three explosive packages were mailed in Winnipeg.

One was addressed to Iris Amsel, one to her lawyer, Maria Mitousis, and one to the law firm that had represented the accused.

Mitousis was seriously hurt by an explosion at her law office July 3, 2015. The other two packages exploded after being blasted with Winnipeg police bomb unit water cannons.

No DNA was recovered after the water cannons were used, but Amsel’s DNA was found in Mitousis’s office after the blast that blew off her right hand.

Throughout the trial, Amsel’s defence team questioned witnesses about the possibility of scene contamination and DNA transfer. But Vanderhooft said any suggestion of contamination is “only speculation,” emphasizing evidence from the explosion scenes were sent to the RCMP lab in Ottawa, while a sample of Amsel’s blood was sent to a lab in Edmonton for DNA testing.

Zaman argued the Crown hasn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt Amsel was trying to kill anyone.

Attempted murder is “one of the most difficult charges to prove because of the high threshold… There has to be a specific intent to kill,” Zaman argued, saying fragments of stamped-cooper messages included within two of the bombs suggested the bomber expected his targets to be alive to read them.

The bombs were “obviously” designed to kill, Vanderhooft argued. “Whether it does or whether it doesn’t is a matter of luck.”

A date has not yet been set for Lord to deliver her decision.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay