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The NSW Supreme Court has ordered a judicial inquiry into the 1981 convictions of the so-called “Croatian Six” over an alleged conspiracy to bomb four businesses in Sydney and cut the city’s water supply, amid grave concerns the men were framed by a Yugoslav spy.
In a historic decision on Tuesday, Justice Robertson Wright ordered a judicial inquiry into the 41-year-old convictions of Maksimilian Bebic, Mile Nekic, Vjekoslav Brajkovic, Anton Zvirotic, Ilija Kokotovic and Joseph Kokotovic, who were sentenced to a maximum of 15 years’ prison in relation to the alleged plot.
The Croatian Six.
The Croatian-born men were arrested in Lithgow and Sydney in 1979 and were accused of plotting to bomb two travel agencies in Sydney, a Serbian social club, the Elizabethan Theatre in Newtown, and Sydney water supply pipes, as well as other offences of stealing or possessing explosives.
The men were members of Croatian national organisations and were said to have a motive to bomb the targets, including the Newtown venue where entertainers from Yugoslavia were about to perform, in the name of Croatia’s independence from Yugoslavia. A jury found the men guilty in February 1981 after a NSW Supreme Court trial.
Wright said on Tuesday he was “comfortably satisfied … there are a number of doubts or questions as to parts of the evidence in the case and the guilt of the Croatian Six”, and that a key witness for the Crown, a suspected Yugoslav spy, may have given evidence that was “deliberately false”.
The application for a judicial review was made on behalf of three of the men – Bebic, Nekic and Vjekoslav – but Wright said the court was empowered to direct an inquiry into the convictions of all six men.
The court heard the men’s trial included testimony from a Bosnian-born witness known as Vico Virkez, real name Vito Misimovic or Mesimovic, who moved to Australia in 1970. He had delivered a tip-off to police in February 1979, claiming that he had been involved in the bombing conspiracy with the men.
Wright said the Crown put Virkez forward at the trial as key to its case and claimed there was “not a skerrick of evidence that [he] was some sort of undercover agent … or Yugoslav representative”. That claim is in doubt.
The judge said there was a “real possibility that the Yugoslav Intelligence Service used Mr Virkez as an agent provocateur or informer, to cause false information to be given to the NSW Police, and possibly ASIO, as to the existence of a bombing conspiracy involving the Croatian Six, in order to discredit Croatians in Australia”.
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