A look back at the Guido Amsel case as court hears closing arguments in case this week
Amsel, 51, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder and several explosives-related offences
After nearly eight weeks of testimony from dozens of witnesses, a judge will hear closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of accused mail bomber Guido Amsel.
The 51-year-old was arrested in July 2015 after packages containing bombs were mailed to his ex-wife Iris and two law firms tied to an ongoing civil dispute.
Amsel is charged with five counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated assault and several explosives-related offences in connection to the three bomb packages and a December 2013 explosion at his ex-wife's home in the Rural Municipality of St. Clements. No one was injured in that incident.
Two of the bomb packages from 2015 were safely detonated by police but a third went off in the hands of Winnipeg lawyer, Maria Mitousis.
Mitousis, Iris Amsel's lawyer at the time, was seriously injured and lost her right hand after she pushed a button on a tape recorder that had been sent to her River Avenue office July 3, 2015. The tape recorder was a home-made explosive device.
A second bomb, delivered to Iris Amsel's Washington Avenue workplace, was detonated by a police robot, as was a third sent to the Stradbrook Avenue office of Guido Amsel's former lawyers.
Court has heard the bombs arrived just one week before a scheduled auction to satisfy a debt Amsel owed Iris.
A city on edge
The mail bombs sent chills throughout Winnipeg and led to a number of scares, a fear heightened by the fact police couldn't immediately say for sure whether or not more bombs had been sent.
Judge Tracey Lord ruled last week there were enough similarities and linkages between the four bomb events that she could conclude they were the responsibility of the same person. The decision came one day after prosecutors argued a similar fact motion that would allow Lord to use the evidence of one bombing incident to assess another.
Court has heard a piece of string seized at the 2013 bomb scene was found to have Amsel's DNA on it, as did a plastic pouch found at the site of the explosion that injured Mitousis.
Trial starts with grisly details
Barker said Mitousis complained her left hand was "stinging" so he lifted it to take a look. He was shocked but kept his reaction hidden from her.
"I would compare it to an empty glove. The skin was still there but the flesh and bones were gone," he said.
The first day of proceedings saw police detail their early investigation, including the painstaking task of piecing together the "thousands of potential exhibitory items" created by the explosions.
This included finding the blown up pieces of a note stuck to the tape recorder Mitousis received.
The reconstructed letter read in part: "Hi Maria, push enter to start. Listen to the conversation and phone me. Will help your defence."
Amsel's lawyers cross-examined officers from the scene, alleging police lapses left evidence open to contamination.
The trial heard police officers executed a search warrant at Amsel's home on Pandora Avenue and found two digital recorders. Police also executed a so-called "sneak-and-peek" warrant later that month at another "residence of interest" on Minaki Bay in Winnipeg.
Court heard that home's kitchen, dining room and basement workshop were littered with electronic devices and tools, including soldering irons, a roll of copper wire, and what was described as "small electronic items you would see at Radio Shack," and partially disassembled Christmas tree bulbs.
Iris Amsel testified in November, telling court the handwriting on the suspicious package sent to her at the address on Washington Avenue "seemed similar" to Amsel's. An FBI expert who testified later in the trial said, while there were many similarities, he could not positively identify handwriting found on the three bomb packages as belonging to Amsel.
Court has heard Guido Amsel accused Iris of stealing $3 million from his business after their divorce. During cross-examination, defence lawyers accused Iris of mailing the bomb packages to herself and others in an effort to cast blame on Amsel and prevent him from pursuing her for the missing money.
She denied the accusations in court.
Earlier this month court heard more about the three Winnipeg explosives, which had all been sent through Canada Post.
An RCMP scientist said they were built using triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, a highly volatile explosive compound that can be synthesized from easy to obtain household cleaners.
The trial then heard from an RCMP DNA analyst, who testified about the DNA evidence that allegedly linked Amsel to the explosion in the Rural Municipality of St. Clements 2013 and the Winnipeg bombings in 2015.
RCMP DNA analyst Christopher Lett said a known blood sample previously identified in court as belonging to Amsel was compared to a mixed DNA profile developed from a plastic pouch found at the scene of the July 2015 bombing that injured Mitousis.
The mixed DNA profile was determined to include the DNA of Mitousis and Amsel as "possible contributors," Lett said.
When Lett isolated the two contributors, the "possible" Amsel sample and the known Amsel sample were found to be a positive match, with just a 1 in 1.2 billion-billion chance they came from different people.
'The evidence is fabricated'
When Amsel testified late last week, he claimed to be the victim of a conspiracy, saying his former lawyer, the Crown, and the forensics lab that tested the DNA evidence were all in on a plan to see him falsely accused of the crimes.
"The evidence is fabricated," he said.
He alleged his ex-wife is responsible for the explosion outside her home in 2013 and the three mail bombs sent in 2015.
He said he sweats a lot and would take his kids to the dollar store every week, often touching items in the store.
As for the DNA found on the string at the 2013 explosion — a string police allege was used as a tripwire — Amsel said he had likely left the string behind while doing work on the property years earlier.
Amsel is being tried by a judge alone.
With files from Dean Pritchard