ACT: Alleged letter bomber admits making bombs

AAP General News (Australia)
04-27-1999
ACT: Alleged letter bomber admits making bombs

CANBERRA, April 27 AAP - The man accused of Australia's biggest letter bombing campaign
today admitted making the bombs but said they were nowhere near as powerful as replicas made
by the Army.

Colin George Dunstan, 43, of the northern Canberra suburb of Palmerston, appeared in court
today for his committal hearing on 57 charges.

The former tax office Dunstan has yet to enter any plea to the charges, which relate to 28
parcel bombs sent to Australian Tax Office and Human Rights Commission officials in Canberra,
New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria last December.

But today he told the ACT Magistrates Court that replicas of his devices constructed by an
army engineering agency were far more powerful than those he built.

"It's pretty clear from the evidence that the devices they constructed are 25 times more
powerful than anything I constructed," Dunstan told the court.

He said none of his own devices detonated when they were opened up by the Army.

One of the devices exploded when it was thrown into a sorting bin by staff at the Canberra
Mail Centre, damaging a steel roof beam.

But Dunstan queried whether the package was one of his, saying the mail centre worker had
said it was addressed to the Canberra suburb of Dickson.

"That is something that puzzled me. No package that I prepared and mailed in the last year
was mailed to Dickson," Dunstan said.

Dunstan is representing himself after his lawyers withdrew from the case.

"I will be representing myself from now on because I cannot afford legal representation,"
Dunstan said.

The hearing continues.

AAP fh/mfh/bm/de

KEYWORD: DUNSTAN

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.