Minutes after a judge found Guido Amsel guilty on four counts of attempted murder his friends expressed disbelief.
Rudy Mooyman claims to be in regular contact with Amsel and said the 51-year-old walked into court Thursday expecting to be released.
“Guido didn’t do it,” Mooyman said. “It’s the police that set him up.”
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Mooyman said he was accused of helping to build the bombs sent across Winnipeg in 2015.
“I was taken in for six hours of interrogation and during the interrogation I find out they were setting him up,” he said.
The first mail bombing explosion happened in December 2013 at Amsel’s ex-wife Iris’s rural home in St. Clements.
Then, in July 2015, one letter bomb was sent to Iris Amsel’s workplace, another was sent to a law office on Stradbrook Avenue and a third was sent to 252 River Ave., the law office where Maria Mitousis, the lawyer representing Iris, worked.
Mitousis lost her right hand after a recording device sent to her office detonated when she pressed play.
While delivering her verdict, Judge Tracey Lord said she believes that Amsel thinks his wife stole millions of dollars from him and that others have helped her cover up the theft, including police and lawyers.
“I do not accept that any of those things actually happened but I do accept Mr. Amsel believes they did,” she said.
Mooyman claims he himself, should have been the main witness in the case, but he was never called.