Benjamin
11-10-2010, 01:44 AM
Dingo baby case re-opens in Australia with new inquest
By Nick Bryant
BBC News, Sydney
Azaria's father has been pressing for a new inquest, citing new evidence of dingo attacks on humans Thirty years after the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain, whose parents always claimed she was taken by a dingo, Australia is preparing a new inquest to try to resolve the question.
Azaria's mother, Lindy, was found guilty of murder in 1982.
But she was later exonerated after a piece of the baby's clothing was found in an area full of dingo lairs.
Sources in the Northern Territory have told The Melbourne Age newspaper a new inquest would likely open next year.
It will examine the question of whether the baby was taken by a dingo.
'Death unknown'
Ten-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a campsite in the Australian outback in 1980, and virtually ever since, the country has been engrossed by the question of whether the baby was taken by a dingo.
That was how her parents always explained Azaria's disappearance, but two years later Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of her baby's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Later she was exonerated on all charges, after the chance discovery of a fragment of Azaria's clothing in an area dotted with dingo's lairs.
But even after three colonial inquests, two appeals and a Royal Commission, the certificate currently lists the cause of death as unknown.
Azaria's father, Michael Chamberlain, has been pressing for a new inquest, citing new evidence of dingo attacks on humans and the killing of a nine-year-old child by two dingoes in 2001.
The legal record already states that the Chamberlains are innocent.
But they want it to go further and to say, definitively, that a dingo took their baby.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11511581
By Nick Bryant
BBC News, Sydney
Azaria's father has been pressing for a new inquest, citing new evidence of dingo attacks on humans Thirty years after the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain, whose parents always claimed she was taken by a dingo, Australia is preparing a new inquest to try to resolve the question.
Azaria's mother, Lindy, was found guilty of murder in 1982.
But she was later exonerated after a piece of the baby's clothing was found in an area full of dingo lairs.
Sources in the Northern Territory have told The Melbourne Age newspaper a new inquest would likely open next year.
It will examine the question of whether the baby was taken by a dingo.
'Death unknown'
Ten-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a campsite in the Australian outback in 1980, and virtually ever since, the country has been engrossed by the question of whether the baby was taken by a dingo.
That was how her parents always explained Azaria's disappearance, but two years later Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of her baby's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Later she was exonerated on all charges, after the chance discovery of a fragment of Azaria's clothing in an area dotted with dingo's lairs.
But even after three colonial inquests, two appeals and a Royal Commission, the certificate currently lists the cause of death as unknown.
Azaria's father, Michael Chamberlain, has been pressing for a new inquest, citing new evidence of dingo attacks on humans and the killing of a nine-year-old child by two dingoes in 2001.
The legal record already states that the Chamberlains are innocent.
But they want it to go further and to say, definitively, that a dingo took their baby.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11511581