Rain hampers trackers’ search for British tourist

Rainfall today hampered efforts by police and Aborigine trackers to find a British tourist abducted and feared killed by a gunman on a remote highway.

Peter Falconio, 28, of Hepworth, near Huddersfield, West Yorks, and his girlfriend Joanne Lees, 27, were stopped on Saturday along a highway in the Northern Territory by a man claiming he was having trouble with his car.

Miss Lees told police that Mr Falconio got out of their van to inspect what the gunman said were sparks coming from the vehicle’s exhaust pipe. She heard a gunshot and did not see her boyfriend again, police said.

Police said they had found Mr Falconio’s blood at the scene, and fear he is dead.

Fearing extensive coverage of the case in Britain may hurt Australia’s lucrative tourist industry, officials today defended the country as a safe place to visit.

"Incidents happen in every country and all we are saying to the British media is, please keep it in perspective," said Andrew Woodward, Australian Tourism Corporation’s manager of corporate affairs.

Queensland state Tourism Industry Corporation spokesman Daniel Gschwind said: "Australia is a safe and interesting environment to visit."

Bob Fields, a regional commander with Northern Territory police, said Tuesday that checkpoints were being maintained on the few roads that crisscrossed the vast, mostly uninhabited desert where Mr Falconio and his attacker are being sought.

However, rain across the region had reduced the potential for Aboriginal trackers to find clues, Fields said.

"The terrain up there is very rocky, hard country it’s not conducive to the normal sorts of things like footprints and shoe prints," Fields said.

Fields said police have received a strong public response to a computer-generated image of the gunman which was shown prominently in news reports across the country, but nothing to provide a breakthrough.

"We’re just hoping that someone’s going to ring us some time today and say, 'I know this bloke'," Fields said.

Mr Falconio’s father Luciano and brother Paul were today flying to Australia and were expected to arrive in central Australia tomorrow.

Before his flight, Luciano Falconio called on people who knew anything about his son’s disappearance to come forward.