SA: Snowtown suppressions partially lifted by Supreme Court

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-2000
SA: Snowtown suppressions partially lifted by Supreme Court

EDS: This story available to all subscribers including South Australia.



ADELAIDE, Dec 21 AAP - A South Australian Supreme Court judge today partially lifted
suppressions in the bodies-in-barrels murder case.

Justice Brian Martin ordered suppressions be lifted on parts of the Crown prosecutor's
opening address in the committal hearing in the Adelaide Magistrates Court of four men
facing charges of murdering 10 people.

The Crown's opening address to the committal hearing, which has been adjourned until
January 22, was suppressed by Magistrate David Gurry last week.

Mr Gurry also suppressed the evidence of three pathologists who performed post mortems
on the 10 victims.

Lawyers representing 13 media outlets appealed the suppressions to the Supreme Court.

Justice Martin said today he would release an edited version of the Crown prosecutor's
opening address to the media this afternoon.

He said the suppression orders relating to the pathologists' evidence would remain.

Four men have not entered pleas to murder charges relating to the discovery of eight
bodies in a disused bank vault in Snowtown, 150km north of Adelaide, and two bodies later
found buried in a north suburban Adelaide backyard.

Three men - Robert Joe Wagner, 28, of Elizabeth Grove, John Justin Bunting, 34, of
Craigmore, and Mark Ray Haydon, 42, of Smithfield Plains - face 10 murder charges.

A fourth man, James Spyridon Vlassakis, 20, of Craigmore, faces five murder charges.

AAP sl/hu/bwl

KEYWORD: SNOWTOWN (CARRIED EARLIER)

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