Moran,42,was arrested at his home in Perth last week,17 years after Strobel was found dead near the caravan park in Lismore where she was last seen drinking with Moran,then named Tobias Suckfuell,his sister Katrin Suckfuell and their friend Jens Martin.
The trio had been backpacking around Australia when Strobel,a 25-year-old teacher from the German state of Bavaria,disappeared from the caravan park after a night of drinking with her companions on February 11,2005.
Moran and Martin reported Strobel missing the next morning. Her body was found five days later under a pile of palm fronds at an abandoned sports ground near the caravan park.
Moran,who was extradited to NSW following his arrest in Perth,appeared via video link wearing a face mask and blue protective gown on Wednesday as he applied for bail.
His barrister Tim Game,SC,was scathing of the police case against him,telling the court the allegations set out in court documents contained an “extraordinary set of assertions ... that no prosecutor could ever put to a court to ask them to convict”.
Game argued that police had not put forward any evidence that progressed the case beyond what was heard during the 2007 coronial inquest,when then-deputy state coroner Paul MacMahon found there was insufficient evidence to refer the matter for prosecution.
“To describe the case as weak is to give it some credence,” Game said on Wednesday. “Nothing has changed except the way in which police are prepared to characterise this case.”