Domenic Perre, the man convicted over the deadly 1994 parcel bomb attack on the National Crime Authority headquarters in Adelaide, is seeking to have the guilty verdicts overturned due to a lack of direct evidence linking him to the bomb.
The parcel bomb, addressed to Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen, detonated on the twelfth floor of the NCA office on Waymouth Street in Adelaide's CBD in 1994.
Detective Sergeant Bowen was killed and lawyer Peter Wallis, who was nearby when Sergeant Bowen opened the parcel, was seriously injured.
Nearly three decades later, a Supreme Court judge last year found Perre guilty of murder and attempted murder.
Justice Kevin Nicholson found Perre sent the parcel bomb in revenge over the police officer's investigation into the Perre family's drug business.
During the trial, prosecutors alleged Perre had a "festering hatred" towards police and in particular Sergeant Bowen.
"Geoffrey Bowen was the target and he ended up dead. This was personal," then-prosecutor Sandi McDonald told the Supreme Court during the trial.
Perre was immediately identified as a suspect, but the first set of charges were dropped in September 1994 on the basis there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.
He was charged again in 2018, after police reviewed the case.
Seeking to overturn the convictions, Perre's lawyer Andrew Tokley KC told the Court of Criminal Appeal that the guilty verdicts were "unreasonable and cannot be supported in evidence".
"We have been found guilty of the most serious crimes … and we've got these inconsistencies," Mr Tokley told the court.
"Given these inconsistencies, given the discrepancies in the evidence now can we be sure of the finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt?"
Mr Tokley also told the court there was no evidence supporting the prosecution's claims that Perre had a hatred of police and Sergeant Bowen.
"It's simply not there," Mr Tokley said.
"There's no suggestion here of distrust or hatred."
Evidence 'inadequate', lawyer says
Mr Tokley pointed to inconsistencies, discrepancies and inadequacies in the evidence at trial.
He said Justice Nicholson looked at the evidence "through the eyes" of a small number of witnesses.
"In my respectful submission his Honour's approach, seeing the evidence through the eyes of those three witnesses led to an error ," Mr Tokley told the court.
He said one of the star witnesses for the prosecution, gunsmith Allan Chamberlain, had a "vested interest in deflecting attention away from himself".
Mr Chamberlain — who once shot himself inside a police station to demonstrate how effective his body armour was during a sales pitch — said he stored firearms as well as bomb-making books for Perre.
During the trial, it was revealed that two weeks before the bombing, Perre asked Mr Chamberlain to return three books about homemade explosives and C4.
On March 1, 1994 — the day before the NCA explosion — the trial heard that Perre returned the books, along with a bag of detonators and detonator cord, to Mr Chamberlain for safekeeping.
Mr Tokley said Mr Chamberlain's evidence was unreliable.
"There are inconsistencies on the evidence of Mr Chamberlain so the question is how does [the judge] rationalise that?"
Mr Tokley said the evidence needed to be assessed in chronological order and not doing so would lead to the "distortion of evidence".
Perre absent due to ill health
At the start of the two-day appeal hearing it was noted that Perre was not present.
"Ill health prevents him from being able to attend these proceedings," Mr Tokley told the court.
The 65-year-old was taken to hospital when he collapsed shortly after the verdict was delivered in May last year.
He was later taken back into custody after undergoing heart surgery.
Three judges are hearing the appeal and are expected to deliver their judgement at a later date.
