criminal case summary

cindy huang 10K

case: backpacker murders committed by ivan milat

on 22nd may 1994, ivan milat (who had also previously been arrested for the abduction of
two women and the rape of one) was arrested for the murders of seven people: british
backpackers caroline clarke and joanne walters, everist and gibson as well as simone
schmidi, anja habschied and her boyfriend gabor neugebauer from germany. the bodies had
been variously stabbed, shot and beaten. they were all buried face down, hands behind
back and covered with a pyramidal frame of sticks and ferns. the first bodies discovered in
september 1992, the last found in november 1993. milat was eventually identified and
arrested due to the help of a man named paul onions from the UK who had been
backpacking to australia several years beforehand and was one of milat's previous targets.
he called in to report his incident and later flew over to australia and positively identified
milat as the individual that had attempted to kidnap, bind and shoot him.

milat was charged with the attempted murder, false imprisonment and robbery of paul
onions on 27th july 1996 and he received six years in gaol for each charge. in addition to
this, he was consecutive life sentences each for the seven murders he was found guilty of
with no chance of parole. his lawyer argued that despite the evidence found there was no
conclusive or damning proof that milat had actually committed the murders while
attempting to shift blame onto some of milat's family members including his brother richard
milat with whom he had joined road gangs with prior to arrest for the backpacker murders.

he was transferred to a maximum security prison in goulburn after attempting to escape

with a fellow inmate, george savvas, who was found hanging in his cell the day after the
failed escape. he later attempted to file an appeal in which he argued his legal
representation in his murder trial had been of poor quality and breached a right of his
common law right to legal representation. however this appeal was dismissed due to the
ruling that his representation had not been so poor that it would not have made a positive
impact if he had not had it. again in 2004 milat filed a request that should be allowed to
appear via a video link in order to make an oral submission in an upcoming application that
he was to file about taking special leave to appeal on new grounds. this was also dismissed
as the court ruled that any application or appeal he made could also be addressed via
written submissions.