An itinerant fruitpicker who started a fire which killed 15 people in a popular backpackers' hostel has been jailed for life, bringing a close to one of Australia's worst modern mass murders.
Brisbane Supreme Court Judge Peter Dutney handed Robert Long the mandatory life sentence today after a jury convicted the homeless 38-year-old on Friday of two counts of murder.
Long was also jailed for 15 years on a single arson charge to be served concurrently with the murder sentence. He could be eligible for parole in 20 years.
"I'm happy to concede you had no intent to kill but death was such an inevitability in the circumstances that to light those fires displays callousness and cruelty that is hard to imagine," the judge told the court.
The case drew international attention. Among those killed was Ms Julie O’Keefe from Limerick. Six Britons, two Dutch backpackers, a South Korean and a Japanese traveller were killed with four Australians were also killed.
The 12-member jury deliberated for two days before convicting Long of arson and the murder of Australian twins Kelly and Stacey Slarke in the horrifying midnight fire which ripped through the century-old Palace Backpackers hostel in Childers, 300 km (185 miles) north of Brisbane on June 23rd, 2000.