GIST: "Almost a quarter of a century after the murder of a senior drug-busting Federal Police officer, another inquiry is about to open into a case that continues to intrigue Australia. Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester was shot twice in the head at his home in the Canberra suburb of Deakin in January, 1989.........Despite attempts by the Director of Public Prosecutions to limit the inquiry to new evidence relating to gunshot residue found in Eastman's car, Justice Marshall agreed to include 19 grounds proposed by Eastman's counsel. These included mental health issues, the conduct of police and prosecutors during the investigation and trial, and forensic evidence. The Canberra Times found that one of the prosecution's key scientific witnesses, Bob Barnes, had been dismissed from the Victoria Forensic Science Centre in 1993 after concerns were raised about his evidence in several cases. The Eastman jury was not told of this. The Canberra Times also said Eastman had presented new sworn evidence claiming that a friend had borrowed the vehicle to go rabbit shooting, accounting for the gunshot residue in the boot. This week the Australian reported that one of Australia's leading anti-mafia prosecutors, Vincenzo Macri, was convinced the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta killed Winchester. Macri, a former deputy chief of the National Anti-Mafia Directorate in Italy, told the Australian that he based his belief largely on police sources from Operation Cerberus, a joint state-federal taskforce that targeted Italian organised crime in the early 1990s."

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