The trial of a fruit picker accused of setting a fire in an Australian hostel that killed 15 backpackers, including an Irish woman, Julie O'Keeffe from Bray, Co Wicklow, began in Brisbane today.
The trial started 20 months after the night-time blaze ripped through the 100-year-old wooden Palace Backpackers' Hostel in Childers, 300 kilometres north of Brisbane. It will last about six weeks, court officials said.
Defendant Robert Long (38) pleaded not guilty at his committal hearing to three specimen charges - two for the murders of West Australian twins Kelly and Stacey Slarke and one for arson, for allegedly setting the fire on June 23th, 2000.
He has not been charged with the deaths of one Irish national, six Britons, two other Australians, two Dutch travellers, a South Korean and a Japanese national because he already faces a maximum life sentence.
Police say Mr Long confessed to setting the fire when he was tracked down in the bush by police dogs and arrested. He was shot in the shoulder by an officer after a struggle in which he allegedly stabbed another policeman in the jaw.
"I'm dying - I started that fire," he said, before lapsing into unconsciousness, the police officers told his committal hearing.
Witnesses at the hearing said Mr Long had told people he was suffering from cancer and did not have long to live, and prison cellmates said he admitted blocking the hostel's emergency exits.
The trial was transferred from the provincial town of Bundaberg to Brisbane after locals were quoted as saying he should be "tied to a stake and burned alive".