NCA bombing suspect Domenic Perre fails in unprecedented bail bid despite claim trial is based on folklore

NCA bombing suspect Domenic Perre has asked a court to release him, saying his murder trial is based on ‘folklore not facts’.

NCA bombing suspect Domenic Perre. Picture: NINE NEWS.

NCA bombing suspect Domenic Perre says the case against him is based on “folklore” not forensics – but that claim has failed to win his unprecedented bid for bail.

On Monday, Perre’s counsel argued decades of police investigations had yielded neither DNA, nor fingerprints or chemical traces, tying their client to the 1994 incident.

A key prosecution witness, they said, was now dead, while others ranged from a fraudster to a rapist to a psychiatric inpatient with convictions for impersonating police and doctors.

Gilbert Aitken, for Perre, said told the Supreme Court his client should be allowed to return home so he and his numerous health conditions could be cared for by his family.

“We say there has been a wholesale substitution of facts in this case for what has become folklore,” he said.

“There are no forensics linking Perre to the bomb or its components … there’s no partial fingerprints, no latent fingerprints, no trace of the explosive used.

“These witnesses are motivated by self-interest and the $1 million reward.”

Perre, 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder over the March 2, 1994, bombing.

Prosecutors allege that, motivated by “festering hatred”, Perre built and sent a parcel bomb to the NCA’s Adelaide office.

They allege almost three decades worth of police investigations prove Perre’s guilt.

Last week, Perre applied for release on bail, noting his ongoing health issues and the COVID-19 pandemic place him at great risk while incarcerated.

His lawyers said that, if successful, they would seek to have the remaining three years of his drug trafficking sentence converted to home detention.

On Monday, Mr Aitken said much of the case against Perre had been laid, and then dropped, back in 1994, leaving the witnesses as the only new aspect.

“One of those is now deceased, another is a major fraud offender, the third has regularly spent time as an inpatient in psychiatric facilities here and interstate,” he said.

“That man has told extensive lies about his purported time in the Australian Defence Force and has impersonated not just a police officer, but also a doctor.”

Justice Chris Bleby, however, said other considerations warranted against Perre’s release.

“(One witness) has given an account of interactions with Perre that he regards as, at least, unsettling,” he said.

“Given the prospect he will offend again, which I regard as considerable, and the real threat he may interfere with witnesses, I refuse bail.”