Australian civil libertarians were yesterday calling for evidence in the murder trial of British backpacker Peter Falconio to be reexamined following concerns over the DNA testing method used.
Low copy number DNA testing has been drawn into question after a judge last week criticized the DNA evidence when he acquitted a man charged with murder over the deadly 1998 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland.
The technique was used to help convict Bradley Murdoch of murdering Falconio, a British backpacker who disappeared while on a road trip through the central Australian desert in 2001.
Murdoch was also convicted of abducting and assaulting Falconio's girlfriend and travelling companion Joanne Lees before she was able to escape from the ordeal near Barrow Creek, 300km north of Alice Springs.
The Australian Council for Civil Liberties said the British case meant that evidence used against Murdoch must be reviewed.
"Mr Murdoch should be immediately given a special grant of legal aid with a special component to examine the forensic evidence," council president Terry O'Gorman said.
"If there's a serious question mark over it, it should go back to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal should reconsider whether his conviction is safe," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
O'Gorman said the technique, a relatively new and sensitive form of testing which allows a small number of human cells to be analysed, should be suspended here ahead of a British review.
"This is not any special call for sympathy for Murdoch," O'Gorman said. "The reality is it's absolutely imperative that forensic evidence used in criminal cases be highly reliable."
O'Gorman said the DNA samples used in the Falconio case were those said to have been found on the ties used to tie up Lees and a microscopic sample of blood on Murdoch's clothing.
Murdoch was sentenced to life in jail in December 2005 after he was found guilty of shooting 28-year-old Falconio to death beside a remote outback highway. Falconio's body has never been found.
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