HILTON BOMBING Evan Pederick’s story
Terrorist turned reverend Evan Pederick tells his story of guilt and renewal for the first time
The Hilton Hotel bomber’s quest for spiritual fulfilment led him down two very different paths. On the one hand, Evan Pederick’s desire to belong to a community and understand his place in the world led him, he says, to perpetrate one of the worst acts of terror on Australian shores. On the other hand, it sparked a second chapter of life, as an Anglican minister. Pederick says he was a naïve and socially awkward 22-year-old in 1978 when he planted a bomb in a bin outside Sydney’s Hilton Hotel, killing police officer Paul Burmistriw and garbage collectors Alec Carter and William Favell. Pederick’s intended target had been the Indian prime minister, who was attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting at the hotel.
In the current climate of heightened awareness of the threat of terror, it’s hard to imagine how someone could wander up to a hotel filled with foreign dignitaries and fill a bin with 30 sticks of gelignite. How, also, could the intelligent son of a Methodist minister be willing to commit murder, and what role did his connection to a radical religious movement, the Ananda Marga, play in his decision?
Journalist Imre Salusinszky has been intrigued by the events of February 13, 1978, since he was a cadet reporter at The Age. “Terror came to Australian shores,” says Salusinszky. “And it caused tremendous fear and terror in the community. It changed Australia forever.”
It would be years before the identity of the bomber emerged, though the event and its aftermath remains steeped in controversy and counterclaims even today . When Pederick confessed a decade after the crime, many doubted his guilt. Wild conspiracy theories were floated, some even suggesting our own spy network, ASIO, was behind it. As far as many are concerned, the mystery remains unsolved.
Salusinszky has spent eight years working with Pederick, helping him tell his story in a new book, The Hilton Bombing: Evan Pederick and the Ananda Marga – and has no doubt about his subject’s guilt. “We have often seen how these sorts of vulnerable young males can be radicalised quite quickly,” he says. The journalist maintains that, far from feeling remorse, Pederick was filled with more fervour after the attack on the hotel, and allegedly began plotting an attack on the Iranian Embassy in Canberra.
But over time, and particularly when he became a father to twin sons, guilt began gnawing away at Pederick. The professed bomber later likened that guilt to a monster inside a box. Eventually, he began to loathe himself and desperately wanted to face up to his mistake.
“My first thoughts were it will fade,” Pederick told his prison psychiatrist. “That never really worked. I never lived it down in my mind.” The guilt stopped him from properly connecting with his sons, his friends and other loved ones, says Salusinszky. “He wanted to confess but he couldn’t bear to face the damage it would do to them.”
Eventually, Pederick did own up and served eight years in jail. Within Long Bay Prison, his spiritual quest continued. He worshipped as a Roman Catholic, but after his release settled on Anglicanism.
Simply being a devoted member of his West Australian congregation was not enough for Pederick, who felt certain he had a vocation. Like all candidates for the ministry, he went through a rigorous 12-month assessment. But, because of his past crime, he also needed to gain the approval of Archbishop Peter Carnley.
The church encouraged Pederick’s vocation, which Salusinszky calls “a courageous decision”. Now Pederick hopes that in telling his story honestly and in full for the first time he will put an end to the conspiracy theories and provide closure to the families of the men who died. “He hopes that this book will bring them some degree of comfort that has been denied for all these years,” Salusinszky says. “He isn’t making excuses for what he has done or the damage he has caused,” sums up Salusinszky. “There are no happy endings.”