Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing

right|thumb|The side of the Sydney Hilton Hotel in 2013

The Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing occurred on 13 February 1978, when a bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in George Street, Sydney, Australia. The hotel was hosting the first Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting (CHOGRM), a regional offshoot of the biennial meetings of the heads of government from across the Commonwealth of Nations.

The bomb was planted in a rubbish bin and exploded when the bin was emptied into a garbage truck outside the hotel at 12:40 a.m. It killed two men, Alec Raymond Carter and Arthur William Favell, the garbage collectors who picked up the bin. A police officer guarding the entrance to the hotel lounge, Paul Burmistriw, died later. It injured eleven others. Twelve foreign leaders were staying in the hotel at the time, but none were injured. Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser immediately deployed the Australian Army for the remainder of the CHOGRM meeting.

The Hilton case has been highly controversial due to allegations that Australian security forces, such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), may have been responsible. This led to the Parliament of New South Wales unanimously calling for the Commonwealth to hold an inquiry in 1991 and 1995.

The Hilton bombing was described in Parliament as the first domestic terrorist event in Australia.

thumb|Workers cleaning up after the bombing.

Accusations of conspiracy

It has been asserted that there were a number of unusual circumstances, namely:

At the 1983 Walsh Coronial Inquest, it was stated by Terry Griffiths and others that there was a continuous police presence outside the building since the previous morning. This may have prevented anyone placing a large bomb into the rubbish bin while the police were there.
The 1995 ABC documentary Conspiracy showed the driver of the garbage truck, Bill Ebb, saying that the bins would normally be emptied several times each day, but police had prevented three earlier trucks from emptying the bin that contained the bomb, even though it was overflowing with rubbish.
In 1991, John Hatton said in parliament that the garbage bin had not been searched for bombs and that searching bins is normally a high priority, and is specified in New South Wales police permanent circular 135.
Army dog handler Keith Burley said that his dogs could smell very small quantities of explosives, and were expected to be used for the event. Burley said they were unexpectedly called off a few days prior without explanation. ASIO had infiltrated the Ananda Marga from 1976, and were monitoring it.

In the 2016 publication, Who Bombed the Hilton?, film-maker Rachel Landers addressed the accusation that the bins outside the Hilton were left unemptied, with a bomb secreted inside one of them, as part of a conspiracy by Australian police or security agencies. Landers asserts: "An enormous number of people are free to shove any number of objects (including an enormous placard) into the bin, lean on it or use it as a convenient seat over a very long period of time. For the conspiracists to be correct, the following have to be lying in their statements: seven garbage men (including a street sweeper), an accountant, two hippies, a sign-writer, a father of two out for the day with his kids, an anarchist and the Hilton commissionaire. They also have to be colluding with each other, the police who have been told to wave away garbage trucks and, one assumes, ASIO and their mates at Special Branch."

In the 2019 book, The Hilton Bombing: Evan Pederick and the Ananda Marga, Imre Salusinszky gives a detailed account of Pederick's version of events and his confession to the bombing, and argues that "not a single shred of evidence has emerged to support any of the conspiracy theories about the Hilton bombing." He said "the official cover-up, if indeed there is one, has remained tight as a drum".

Trials and investigations

A few days after the bombing, Richard Seary offered his services to the police Special Branch as an informant. He expressed the view that the Ananda Marga society might be involved with the Hilton bombing. He soon infiltrated that organization, which had its headquarters in three adjacent houses in Queen Street, Newtown.

On 15 June 1978, Seary told Special Branch that members of Ananda Marga intended to bomb the home of Robert Cameron, a member of the far-right National Front of Australia, that night at his home in the Sydney suburb of Yagoona. Two members of the society — Ross Dunn and Paul Alister — were subsequently apprehended at Yagoona in Seary's company and charged with conspiracy to murder Robert Cameron.

However, there was also some police evidence, and the prosecution had strongly associated the matter with the Sydney Hilton bombing.

In 1984, the Attorney-General, Paul Landa, established an inquiry to investigate the convictions of Dunn, Alister and Anderson. The inquiry was similar to a Royal Commission, and was headed by Justice Wood. Richard Seary was in England at the time and did not take part, but after the inquiry indicated that he was willing to take part. Justice Wood reconvened the inquiry and it ran through to February 1985. The result was that Justice Wood recommended the pardoning of the three, and they were released in 1985.

According to Paul Alister's later assertions, points that emerged during the inquiry included:

Seary's girlfriend Wendy, said that Seary had told her that he had thought they were going to Robert Cameron's house to put up posters, and he had been surprised that explosives were brought along.
Wendy said that Seary had not volunteered to spy on Ananda Marga, but had been pressured by the police.
Seary's friend Dok said that Seary had a plan to bomb an abattoir when he had been in the Hare Krishnas.

Paul Alister later speculated about Richard Seary's motives, saying he was a "wild card" because he seemed to have his own agenda. He stated that Seary seemed to have a mixture of motives for what he said, and seemed to dislike the police. Seary's girlfriend indicated that Seary had been pressured by the police to find evidence that incriminated the "Margiis". Alister and his colleagues speculated that perhaps Seary was being blackmailed into informing, because of his former activity as a drug addict. Seary had also been present when someone had died of a drug overdose. This may have given the police leverage over him, because he could be charged.

In 1989, Anderson was re-arrested for the Sydney Hilton bombing, tried, convicted and sentenced to fourteen years. The crown prosecutor was Mark Tedeschi QC. Anderson was acquitted in 1991 by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal,

Pederick confessed to the bombing and so was convicted without detailed scrutiny of his confession. However, in the Anderson appeal, Chief Justice Gleeson said Pederick's account of the bombing was "clearly unreliable".

Questions about Pederick's sanity were raised in the Anderson appeal. Gleeson criticised the trial judge's directions to the jury that Pederick must be assumed to be "sane". He described Pederick as "a witness who said that on a particular occasion he stood in George Street in Sydney and tried to blow up the Prime Minister of India, the Prime Minister of Australia, and a number of other people besides, and, when his attempt was unsuccessful, attributed its failure to the supernatural intervention of his guru". The Chief Justice added: "He seems to have been a person whose reasoning processes were somewhat unorthodox. There was a significant danger of confusing the jurors by telling them that the law presumed him to be sane".

Pederick unsuccessfully appealed his conviction in 1996, the year before his release. The appeal was rejected when he produced no evidence to explain why his original confession had been false. Pederick was released after serving eight years in jail and stated: "I guess I was quite unique in the prison system in that I had to keep proving my guilt, whereas everyone else said they were innocent."

A plaque was unveiled at the site of the explosion in George Street on 13 February 2008, the 30th anniversary of the blast. The then-Premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma, commended the City of Sydney Council for restoring the memorial plaque to its original home, and said he hoped there will never be a need for another.

Notes

References

Sources

Books

Journal articles

(Search for "Hilton")

News reports and other media

Dellora, Daryl (1995) Conspiracy: Produced by Film Art Doco for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, documentary (shown on True Stories series).
Reviews of Dellora (1995) Conspiracy documentary:
Negus, George (2009) ABC George Negus discussion with Daryl Dellora.
Dixon, Norm (2008) Review of Dellora, Daryl and Ian Wansborough "The Hilton Bombing Revisited"
Freeman, Jane (6 February 1995) "The Hilton bombing" The Sydney Morning Herald
Head, Mike (13 February 2008) "30 years since Sydney's Hilton Hotel bombing—the unanswered questions" World Socialist [Website] (International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI))

External links

Richard Seary Photos and Information, from Neil Paton's web page
Collection of documents, submissions, and commentary campaigning for the exoneration of Alister, Dunn and Anderson (1979–1984)