Hostel arsonist 'lunged at Pc with a knife'

An arsonist serving a life sentence for a fire which killed 15 backpackers in Australia is to face a hearing to determine if he should be charged with attempting to murder a policeman. Robert Long lunged at the officer with a knife when he was captured in a forest after the fire, a Brisbane court was told today. The new hearing will be held later this year.

Long, 41, an itinerant fruit picker, was convicted of murder in March 2002 over the June 2000 fire at the Palace Backpackers Hostel at Childers, Queensland.

The late-night blaze ripped through the two-storey wooden hostel, killing six British travellers, four Australians, two Dutch, one Irish, one Japanese and one South Korean.