‘Flesh of the hand was gone:’ Winnipeg police officer describes bomb injuries

WINNIPEG — A letter bomb that exploded inside a Winnipeg law firm left a lawyer bleeding severely and with a shell of a right hand, a police officer testified Tuesday.

“It was like an empty glove. The skin was still there but the bones and the flesh of the hand were gone,” Const. Paul Barker told the opening day of the trial of Guido Amsel.

Amsel faces five counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated assault and several explosives-related charges stemming from three bombs that were sent in the mail in July 2015.

Amsel has pleaded not guilty and is being tried by judge alone.

One of the packages exploded inside the office of Maria Mitousis, who had represented Amsel’s ex-wife, Iris Amsel, in the couple’s divorce.

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Barker testified he was the first officer to respond to the report of an explosion and arrived about 90 seconds after receiving word of the blast. One of Mitousis’s colleagues at the small family law firm led him to Mitousis, who was sitting on the floor and bleeding from her neck.

“There was a considerable amount of blood,” Barker said.

“I wanted to clear the building as fast as possible in case there was another (bomb).”

Mitousis, 38, had a laceration to her throat, her left hand was severely damaged and her right one was virtually gone, Barker said. She had her hands crossed and appeared “unaware of the extent of her injuries,” he added.

She was taken to hospital, underwent surgery and lost her right hand entirely.

Other bombs that did not go off were found later that week at Amsel’s ex-wife’s workplace and at the office of a lawyer that had represented Amsel in a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife.

At the time, police said the bomb at Mitousis’s office was made up of an explosive device hidden inside a small grey voice recorder.

Const. Brian Neumann, a forensic identification specialist, told the trial he and a colleague pieced together an envelope and a handwritten note that police believe accompanied the explosive device.

The note asked Mitousis to press a button on the device, Neumann said.

“The handwriting … said ‘Hi Maria. Push enter to start. Listen to the conversation and phone me. Will help with your — we think it says — ‘defence’,” Neumann testified.

The envelope had a partially obliterated return address in downtown Winnipeg that investigators believe was a law firm where Mitousis had previously worked.

Amsel’s lawyer, Saheel Zaman, raised questions under cross-examination about the effect any explosive device might have had.

“Did you notice any smoke at all?” he asked Barker.

“No I did not,” Barker replied.

Zaman also questioned Barker’s testimony that he noticed a broken window at the law firm when he first arrived.

“You don’t know when that window was broken, correct?”

“Correct,” Barker replied.

The trial is to run for several weeks and is expected to include a lot of technical evidence about explosives and forensic identification.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press