WA: No other person involved in Petrelis death, commissioner

AAP General News (Australia)
12-02-1999
WA: No other person involved in Petrelis death, commissioner

PERTH, Dec 2 AAP - No other person is involved in the heroin overdose death of a key
witness sent to Queensland under the witness protection program, WA Police Commissioner
Bruce Matthews said today.

Mr Matthews also said there was no connection between the illegal accessing of confidential
police computer files on 25-year-old Andrew Petrelis' new identity and his death.

Mr Petrelis' body was found in a Caloundra apartment in September 1995, one month before
he was due to give evidence against two Perth businessmen accused of a cannabis conspiracy.

The pair were acquitted by a jury earlier this month.

Mr Petrelis had been moved to Queensland under WA Police's witness protection program
which will be investigated by a Queen's Counsel next month following concerns about its
operations.

After agreement with the Queensland Police Service, Mr Matthews today released details
surrounding Mr Petrelis' death to clear up what he described as "inaccuracies and inconsistencies"

reported in the media over recent weeks.

Forensic examination of the Caloundra unit, which included fingerprinting and 58 photographs,
showed no evidence to support the theory that anyone else was in the apartment, Mr Matthews
said.

Tests on blood, urine and liver samples also showed the heroin dosage in Mr Petrelis'
body was consistent with other recorded fatal dosages.

At the time of his death, there were five other fatal heroin overdoses in Queensland,
Mr Matthews said.

Post mortem and pathology reports were passed on by police to WA's chief forensic pathologist
Dr Clive Cooke.

"There are no injuries elsewhere to the body and no apparent disturbance of the scene,"

Dr Cooke reported back to police.

"There is then no evidence in this documentation of a struggle or forceful assault
on the deceased".

Mr Matthews also said a front-page photograph staged by the West Australian newspaper
depicting Mr Petrelis naked and crouched on the ground with his right arm twisted behind
his back was fiction.

"This inaccuracy implied that some third party may have forced him into that position,"

Mr Matthews said.

"Actual photographs show his right arm was fully extended, with his hand resting on
a chair".

Mr Matthews said Queensland police had interviewed the dealer who supplied Mr Petrelis
with the heroin.

"He (Petrelis) went out and took $350 out of a money machine and purchased it," he said.

Mr Matthews said he was concerned that two police officers had accessed the WA police
mainframe computer without authorisation and found out registration details of the car
Mr Petrelis was driving in Queensland.

Mr Matthews said an independent external inquiry would determine the motive for the
breach of security, but he did not believe it was connected to Mr Petrelis' death.

"Was there any link at all between what occurred in WA and was the death suspicious?

The answer is `no' to both those questions," he said.

Police Minister Kevin Prince said the QC to head the inquiry into the witness protection
program, which is due to start next month, would be announced soon.

AAP pr/cjh

KEYWORD: PETRELIS

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