Monday is already over in Australia

...which means the defence has made its closing statement to the jury. The prosecution closes tomorrow. There are two main strands to the defence arguments:

• The police faked the DNA evidence:

"Are police prepared, do you think, to bend the rules, to fabricate a little bit, to lie a little bit, particularly as there's no harm done?" Mr Algie said it could be dangerous to place any weight on the DNA evidence because the handcuffs may have been contaminated with Murdoch's DNA, including on an "unbelievable journey" when police took the manacles to a meeting with Mr Murdoch in Adelaide before a portion was sent to the UK for the DNA testing.

• And of course, the credibility of the star witness for the prosecution:

...her official identification of Mr Murdoch a short time after seeing his photograph on the internet, and whether Mr Falconio was in fact dead.

"From time to time people do disappear themselves for reasons perhaps best known to them," [Aigle] said.

"Sometimes they turn up later, sometimes they don't.

"But the difficulty for you ... you will be asked to convict my client of murder and there's no body."

• Three. Three main arguments. There's no body.

Argument #1 carries some weight, if you have a natural suspicion of the police and their methods, and of so-called experts and DNA testing. I feel a bit of this. Because on the one hand you're being asked to believe that Murdoch randomly drops bits of his DNA everywhere. And if it's so easy to do, then of course it could easily happen at any other time, or be planted.

Argument #2 is what the trial is really about. Joanne Lees' convenient identification of Murdoch when she saw his picture on the internet; selling her story to a TV documentary, which makes it seem like she has her own agenda; as much as they can besmirch her character, the defence will.

And argument #3 is yet more reasonable doubt. Either those pesky dingoes ate the body; or it's buried in some anonymous drainage ditch in the outback; or Falconio's not really dead, and is living under an assumed name. Or - if you doubt Joanne Lees - he died somewhere else, in entirely different circumstances, and the police have been looking for the body in the wrong place, placing Murdoch near a fictitious scene of crime.