Ivan Milat nearing his final judgment

Ivan Milat is almost unrecognisable from the man who murdered seven young hitchhikers.

Ivan Milat is transported to jail from hospital.

He has the same horseshoe moustache but otherwise Ivan Milat is almost unrecognisable from the man who murdered seven young hitchhikers.

Photographed yesterday for the first time in 10 years, he is gaunt from oesophageal cancer, which has spread to his stomach.

It may be the last time we see his face and the sight will no doubt elicit as little sympathy as he showed his victims.

“The sooner he dies, the better. When that happens, it will be goodbye to one of the nastiest criminals we’ve had in Australian history,” said Clive Small, one of the detectives, now retired, who helped lock Milat up.

To many Australians, Milat will always be the terrifying figure with a cowboy hat and rifle, or in a singlet with thick biceps, staring down the barrel of a camera in his family photographs.

While he was convicted in 1996 and given seven life sentences, his image is burned into the consciousness of anyone who has considered his crimes, a nightmare brought to life.

Now he is just a frail old man.

Wheeled out of Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital in front of a waiting media scrum at around midday, he was handcuffed and in ankle cuffs.

Ivan Milat leaves Prince of Wales hospital heading to Long Bay Prison. Picture: Diimex.

The NSW Corrective Ser­vices Extreme High Security ­Escort Team was taking no chances.

He had been in hospital for a fortnight after a transfer from Goulburn’s Supermax prison.

The 74-year-old was driven in a white 4WD to his almost certain final home.

Long Bay prison hospital No 1 is where Michael Murphy, one of the five men who murdered Sydney nurse Anita Cobby, died in February.

Milat joined at his destination another inmate-patient, convicted killer Arthur “Neddy” Smith, who is said to be looking just as worse for wear.

As police prepare for a final attempt to elicit the truth from Milat, who has always denied the crimes, a criminal psychologist said the only hope for the truth was to appeal to his ego.

“The only motivation is glory — perverse glory,” Tim Watson-Munro said.

“It might be a death-bed confession saying there weren’t just those people, there were others, and this is where you can find them. And then he becomes immortalised in his own mind prior to dying.”