Road worker is charged in Sydney backpacker case

AFTER Australia's most extensive murder investigation, police yesterday charged a 49-year-old road worker with the murders of seven young backpackers, including two British women, whose bodies were found in the Belanglo state forest, south of Sydney.

Ivan Milat, who was arrested nine days ago, appeared in a packed court in Campbelltown, on the southern edge of Sydney, where he was charged with all seven of the 'backpacker murders', which have become Australia's most sensational serial killings.

The bodies of the British victims, Joanne Walters and Caroline Clarke, both 22, were found in September 1992 five months after they disappeared while hitch-hiking together from Sydney to Victoria. Those discoveries led police late last year to the bodies of two 19-year-old Australians and three Germans in their early twenties, all of whom had gone missing between December 1989 and December 1991 while hitch-hiking along the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne.

Mr Milat sat calmly in court yesterday, watched by relatives, as police alleged that he murdered first the Australian couple, then the Germans and finally the British women over a period of two-and-a- half years. They said that Miss Clarke and one of the Germans had been shot in the head, one of the Germans had been decapitated and Miss Walters, the two Australians and the third German had been stabbed. Miss Clarke had also been sexually assaulted.

Mr Milat was also charged yesterday with the attempted murder of another British tourist near the Belanglo forest in January 1990. Mr Milat allegedly offered a 24- year-old man, whom police describe as Victim A, a lift on the outskirts of Sydney. When the car reached the turn-off to the Belanglo forest, Mr Milat allegedly pulled out a gun, tried to rob the man and shot at him when he fled. Victim A escaped uninjured and reported the incident to the police.

Police launched lightning raids nine days ago on houses in suburban Sydney and towns south of the city, including Mr Milat's home in Eagle Vale near Campbelltown, where they seized camping equipment, firearms and ammunition which resulted in yesterday's charges.

Mr Milat's lawyer, John Marsden, said that his client denied all charges. Outside the court, he also said that recent media 'hype' was prejudicing his client's right to a fair trial.

Mr Milat is due to appear in court again this month.