Vitomir Misimovic – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatian Six – Judicial Inquiry Into Terror Convictions 43 Years On

September 4, 2022 by inavukic 3 Comments

It’s been 43 years 8 months and 21 days since the Croatian Six men were convicted of attempts of terrorist acts in Sydney, Australia and Justice Victor Maxwell who delivered the prison sentences was most likely completely unaware that before him was a masterpiece of lies and machinations of communist Yugoslavia operations against Croatians who rejected communism and migrated to Australia after World War Two. Perhaps Justice Maxwell felt that things were not “right” but was in no position to rule otherwise? May that too will become apparent and clear one day.

It is now clear more than ever that the communist Yugoslavia in its rampage against Croatians who rejected communism and Yugoslavia did include not only purges by mass murders but also framing Croats for terrorist activities around the world due to which Croatians living in West had suffered awful consequences to their good name particularly during the 1960’s and 1970’s while Josip Broz Tito was alive and head of communist Yugoslavia. And so finally, after several attempts since 1982 to achieve a judicial inquiry in this greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of Australia we are looking at the best hope for justice for the Croatian Six men sent to jail on attempted terrorism charges with fabricated evidence and lies that came from a Serbian citizen infiltrating the Croatian community in Sydney as a patriotic Croat! The Croatian Six had always maintained their innocence of the crimes they were charged with eventually imprisoned for ten years each before being released early in 1991.

Finally, the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney Australia has 30 August 2022 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. This historic decision for a judicial inquiry was delivered by Justice Robertson Wright ordered a judicial inquiry into the 41-year-old convictions (and just over 43 years since the indictment) of Maksimilian Bebic, Mile Nekic, Vjekoslav Brajkovic, Anton Zvirotic, Ilija Kokotovic and Joseph Kokotovic, who were sentenced in February of 1981 to a maximum of 15 years’ prison each in relation to the alleged terrorist plot.

As I wrote in my previous posts here these four men of Croatian descent and birth who migrated to Australia and until their shocking arrest for alleged plot to bomb two travel agencies in Sydney, a Serbian club, the Elizabethan Theatre in the Sydney suburb of Newtown, and Sydney water supply pipes connected to the Warragamba Dam on the outskirts of Sydney, as well as other offences of stealing or possessing explosives in Lithgow and Sydney in 1979 all of these six men were decent, honest people and hard workers and it took the communist Yugoslavia dark secret services forces, using a Serb national as a spy to turn them into monsters the world loathed. In that loathing all Croatians living in Australia particularly, who fought for an independent Croatia during World War Two or who simply fled Yugoslavia because they did not tolerate the oppressive, murderous communist regime.

In paragraph 48 of his determination for a judicial inquiry dated 30 August 2022 Justice Wright said that “a significant amount of other material in the declassified ASIO documents forcefully suggests that, at least, Mr Virkez (Serb communist Yugoslavia operative) was an informer to the Yugoslav Consulate-General for a number of months prior to the arrest of the Croatian Six in February 1979, if not a Yugoslav agent or agent provocateur”.

On Page 31, paragraph 72, of Justice Wrights 39 August 2022 determination that a judicial inquiry is to be held stated: “Having regard to all of the material, which was provided by the applicants and the Crown and which included summaries of or extracts from the evidence at trial, it appeared to me, and I was comfortably satisfied, that 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 in paragraph 73 Justice Wright continues: “First, it appeared to me that there is a doubt, or at least a question, as to whether the evidence of Mr Virkez at trial was deliberately false in a number of respects including when he gave evidence about the alleged bombing conspiracy, when he denied spying on the Croatians, and when he denied giving evidence at the behest of anyone connected with the Police Special Branch or the Yugoslav government. I was satisfied that this doubt or question arose having regard to the information identified above, including but not limited to the information contained in: the declassified ASIO documentation; the book Reasonable Doubt: Spies, Police and the Croatian Six; Mr (Hamish) McDonald’s interview with Professor (John) Schindler; the book The Secret Cold War, The Official History of ASIO, 1975 – 1989; the e-book Framed; Mr Virkez’s interview with Mr (Chris) Masters, parts of which were included the Four Corners program; the ABC podcasts including Mr Cunliffe’s information; and, the documents and accounts concerning Mr Cavanagh’s evidence.”

In paragraph 77 Justice Wright of his determination for a judicial inquiry said “… it also appeared that there is a doubt, or at least a question, as to the guilt of the Croatian Six as a result the 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. Mr Virkez’s information led to the arrest and charging of the Croatian Six and their eventual conviction for conspiracy to bomb and possession of explosives. The principal evidence relied upon to secure those convictions was the testimony of Mr Virkez and the evidence of police officers of confessions said to have been made by Croatian Six and explosives said to have been found at their premises. As I have explained, there is, in my view, a substantial doubt or question as to the veracity and reliability of Mr Virkez’s evidence and as to the police evidence. Mr Master’s interview with Mr Virkez and the information from Professor Schindler also indicated that the Croatian Six may not have been part of the alleged conspiracy to bomb. This and other material concerning the alleged finding of explosives at the premises of five of the Croatian Six also led me to conclude that there is a doubt or question about the convictions relating to the explosives offences. Furthermore, on Mr Bebic’s case, the explosives found had been stolen by Mr Virkez and were said by Mr Virkez to be for opal mining. Consequently, there appeared to me to be a doubt or question as to whether the Croatian Six were guilty of any the offences for which they were convicted.”

All six Croatian men vehemently and always denied they had made confessions NSW Police sought to attribute to them, Wright said, and four of the six alleged they had been severely beaten by police. They had always maintained their innocence of the crimes they were charged with and convicted for.

Justice Wright in his determination of 30 August acknowledges previous attempts to secure a judicial inquiry into the 1981 criminal convictions against the Croatian Six and says in paragraph 80 “While the previous applications were unsuccessful, it does not appear to me that they were entirely lacking in merit, although the present application is made considerably stronger than the earlier applications by the availability of the declassified ASIO documents and the further research and information contained in the publications and podcasts since 2012…”

We now patiently wait to receive the results of the judicial inquiry, which could take several months, but as Ellis Peters, The Potters Field, The 17^th Chronicle of Brother Cadfael, wrote: “It may well be, said Cadfael, that our justice sees as in a mirror image, left where right should be, evil reflected as good, good as evil, your angel as her devil. But God’s justice, if it makes no haste, makes no mistakes.” Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anton Zvirotic, communist crimes, communist Yugoslavia Secret Service, Croatia, Croatian diaspora, Croatian Six, Ilija Kokotovic, Joseph Kokotovic, Judge VIctor Maxwell, Judicial Inquiry, Justice Robertson Wright, Maksimilian Bebic, Mile Nekic, NSW Supreme Court, Vico Virkez, Vitomir Misimovic, Vjekoslav Brajkovic

Croatian Six – Judicial Review May Stand Tall On The Horizon Soon (40 Years On)

August 19, 2022 by inavukic 3 Comments

It was a story that captured the attention of the entire Australian nation, indeed of the world and stunned with disbelief and grief the entire Australian Croatian community. In February of 1979 six Croatian men were arrested in Sydney and nearby Lithgow on suspected activities in terrorism, i.e., alleged plan to plant bombs around Sydney, including a major water supply to the city. In 1981 they were each sentenced to 15 years of prison and always maintained their innocence of these crimes. Judicial review of this case and associated criminal convictions had been unsuccessfully applied for several times since then. Finally, though, the matter of justice for Croatian Six appears to have taken a new turn in the positive direction and a judicial review may occur soon.

In its deliberations and response to the February 2021 Sydney barrister Sebastian De Brennan and solicitor Helen Cook’s application for a review on behalf of three of the Croatian Six – Vic Brajkovic, Maks Bebic and Mile Nekic – sentenced to prison in 1981 for a conspiracy to commit bombing terrorist act, the NSW Supreme Court has in July 2022 designated Justice Robertson Wright to decide whether a judicial review should be held into the convictions of the Croatian Six indictments that are more and more appearing as trumped-up charges with planted evidence as a result of individual ASIO officers clandestine collaboration with communist Yugoslavia UDBa. The Croatian Case has frequently during the past decades been labelled as the greatest miscarriage of justice in the entire Australian history.

Justice Wright is likely to make his decision soon after examining De Brennan’s argument for a review and the NSW Crown Solicitor’s Office argument against a review. Among other material there are more than 5,000 pages of the court transcript from the dawn of the 1980’s which are filled with details demanding duly close attention.

Still, this provides the best hope ever that the Croatian Six may indeed soon come out of the dark tunnel of injustice and false accusations and receive the justice they deserve.

Soon after the 2019 publishing of Sydney based Hamish McDonald’s book on the Croatian Six case, “Reasonable Doubt: Spies, Police and the Croatian Six”, barrister Sebastian De Brennan and solicitor Helen Cook, with opinion from David Buchanan SC began working pro bono on a new application to the NSW chief justice.

To remind of the case things went down with the following events. In February of 1979 Vico Virkez, a man from former Yugoslavia, walked into the police station in the mining town of Lithgow and declared to the police that he was part of a Croatian conspiracy to plant bombs around Sydney that night. He was told to go home and not say anything to anyone about what he had said to the police. Later, writes Hamish McDonald, police arrived from Sydney, arrested him and his tenant Maks Bebic, and discovered crude gelignite bombs in Virkez’s old Valiant car. With names supplied by Virkez, police also raided three homes around Sydney, in each of which they found two half-sticks of gelignite in the possession of a total of five other Croatian Australians, Joe and Ilija Kokotovic, Anton Zvirotic, Vjekoslav “Vic” Brajkovic and Mile Nekic. Taken to the old Central Investigation Branch at the back of Central Court, the five confessed to the bomb plot, as had Bebic in Lithgow.

That was the police version, anyway, and along with Virkez’s account it was enough for a jury to convict the six men of conspiracy in a terror-bombing plan, and for Justice Victor Maxwell to sentence each of them to fifteen years’ jail in early 1981. Those decisions were upheld on appeal the following year. All served their time with maximum remissions for good behaviour and were out of prison by the end of the 1980s. Their jailing didn’t improve the Croatian community’s already blackened image at which Yugoslav communists, led by Serbs, worked very hard to achieve with lies and fabrications, writes McDonald.

Virkez, the informer, returned back to Yugoslavia soon after giving his statement evidence in Sydney court, and, given the case attracted a great deal of public interest in Australia, ABC Four Corners reporter Chris Masters travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina and tracked him down in 1991. There, on camera, Virkez revealed that he was a Serb (not a Croat as he told the police in Australia), Vitomir Misimovic. He stated unequivocally that his evidence of the bomb plot against the Croatian Six had been false, that he had been coached in what to say in court by NSW police.

The Six Croats, Max Bebic, Vic Brajkovic, Tony Zvirotic, brothers Joe Kokotovic and Ilija Kokotovic and Mile Nekic were released from prison early, after serving a total of about 10 years with custody pre and during trial counted around the time of Chris Master’s investigations that early on pointed to possible interference with justice and on account of their good behaviour.

After the interview with Virkez featured on the ABC’s Four Corners, two defence lawyers from the original trial, David Buchanan and Ian McClintock, applied to the NSW attorney-general for the convictions to be reviewed. Three years after the broadcast, attorney-general John Hannaford (1992-1995) decided against a review on the advice of two senior state government lawyers, Keith Mason and Rod Howie — advice still not public because of claimed legal privilege.

In 2012, Australian Commonwealth Attorney General Nicola Roxon refused to meet with a group of Australian Croats, known as Justice4Six, who had repeatedly asked her to launch an investigation into the knowledge and actions of the Australian Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Commonwealth Police related to the Croatian Six case. Her department responded that it would be “inappropriate” for the Attorney-General’s office to conduct a separate investigation, as an application for a review of the conviction was before the New South Wales Supreme Court from 1982.

The Australian Justice4Six group made the request for an investigation after an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald, headed by Hamish McDonald, produced new material, which pointed to the truth of the claims that the whole thing was set up by the UDBA, the former Yugoslav intelligence service, then that information about UDBA’s involvement in the whole case had been covered up. New material that would indicate a need to review the convictions against the Croatian Six also emerged at this time, as noted by McDonald, from scholars like John Schindler of the US Naval War College about the murderous war waged on the Croatian diaspora by Yugoslavia’s security service, the UDBa, and Virkez’s withdrawal of evidence.

David Buchanan, joined by a younger lawyer, Sebastian De Brennan, put a fresh application for a judicial review to NSW chief justice Tom Bathurst, appointed after the Coalition had taken government in New South Wales the previous year. Bathurst asked an acting justice, Graham Barr, to assess whether a review was warranted. His assessment, relying on police evidence, saw no cause to prod into convictions.

In November 2016, though, another opening emerged. Military historians John Blaxland and Rhys Crawley published the third volume of the Official History of ASIO, covering 1975–89, the final years of the cold war. In a book vetted by the organisation and based on free access to its archives, they wrote that Virkez had been working as an informant to a suspected UDBa officer in the Yugoslavian consulate-general in Sydney, that ASIO regarded many of the alleged Croatian bombings as “false-flag” operations by the UDBa, and that ASIO had failed to note the seriousness of Yugoslav intelligence activity here. The result, they concluded, was the “wrongful conviction” of the Croatian Six, wrote Hamish McDonald.

In January 2018, certain files from the Commonwealth of Australia National Archives had been opened for the public including files on Vico Virkez. They show that he had been working with a communist Yugoslavia UDBa handler in the Yugoslav Sydney consulate for six months before the arrests.

After the arrests in 1979, ASIO quickly concluded Virkez was the man working with the UDBa officer and circulated this information around state police forces through an intelligence channel. The reaction at NSW police headquarters was dismay. Assistant commissioner Roy Whitelaw contacted ASIO to say that if the men’s defence team became aware of this information, “it could blow a hole right through the police case,” writes Hamish McDonald and continues: Under its chief at the time, Harvey Barnett, ASIO tried to tone down its assessment of Virkez from “agent” to mere “informant.” Barnett wrote in the file that this reduced the likelihood of ASIO’s being accused of having been party to a miscarriage of justice. Bob Hawke government’s attorneys-general, Gareth Evans and Lionel Bowen, then signed off on moves to prevent Ian Cunliffe, by then secretary of the Australian Law Reform Commission, from raising his misgivings regarding the suppression of evidence about Virkez, writes Hamish McDonald and continues:

As Whitelaw correctly saw, this blew a big hole in the case against the Croatian Six — not just the information itself but the act of hiding it. As the counsel for the NSW Crown, Reg Blanch QC, admitted in 1986, during the brief and forlorn attempt by the Croatian Six to appeal to the High Court, it was “almost automatic” that a miscarriage of justice would be created by failure to convey relevant evidence to the defence.

This cover-up was detailed in Hamish McDonald’s book on the affair, Reasonable Doubt: Spies, Police and the Croatian Six. Soon after its 2019 publishing, barrister Sebastian De Brennan and solicitor Helen Cook, with opinion from David Buchanan SC — began working pro bono on a new application to the NSW chief justice. This application is the basis upon which NSW Supreme Court has now, last month, given Justice Robertson Wright the task of advising the relevant authorities as to whether a judicial review on the Croatian Six case should be pursued. Finally, a glimpse of real hope for justice. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ASIO, communist Yugoslavia secret police, Croatian Six, false terrorism indictment, Hamish McDonald, Helen Cook, Ilija Kokotovic, Joe Kokotovic, judicial review, Justice Robertson Wright, Max Bebic, Mile Nekic, NSW Suprene Court, Sebastian de Brennan, Tony Zvirotic, UDBA, Vic Brajkovic, Vito Virkez, Vitomir Misimovic

Australian “Croatian Six” framed and Croatians paid dearly for Serb-dominated anti-Croatian branding

February 11, 2012 by inavukic 15 Comments

The Croatian Six illustration by Simon Bosch

There’s no doubt that Yugoslav Communists/antifascists, led by Josip Broz Tito set out to blacken all people who called themselves Croatians after WWII. Of course, the fact that a part of the Croatian nation (members of Ustashi regime) had collaborated with Nazi Germany during the war, took active roles in the Holocaust, made things very easy for the Serb-dominated Yugoslav secret police, army, government.

The hot iron used to brand all Croatians as terrorists, killers … was the Communist propaganda, overt and covert, that pointed to Croatia as the only state in the Former Yugoslavia that actively participated in the Holocaust.

The fact that 94% of Serbian Jews had been exterminated in Serbia by mid-1942 had entered the historical records (written by the Communists and the Allies) as murderous deeds perpetrated in Serbia by the occupying Nazi-Germany forces and not Serbs. Many, it seems, thought nothing of the fact that the government of Milan Nedic and the Serbian Orthdox church during WWII were only too eager and quick to collaborate with the Nazis and help bring the Serbian Jews to the slaughter.

All Croatians that fled Communist Yugoslavia after WWII, if not murdered, were branded extremists, terrorists and fascists. The fact that majority had nothing to do with the Ustashi regime or politics during WWII was unimportant. Croatians, wherever they lived, had to be destroyed for their love of Croatia had posed a threat to Communist Yugoslavia which worked tirelessly and dirty at creating a world image of a regime of “brotherhood and unity”; that Communism was the solution for peace and prosperity.

The Sydney Morning Herald has February 11 published an article “Framed: the untold story about the Croatian Six”, by Hamish McDonald.

The Herald investigation strengthens suspicions that the Croatian Six, all young tradesmen and Australian citizens of Croatian birth – were framed for terrorism, each spending up to a decade in prison. Their trial and subsequent convictions may represent one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Australian history.

Six Australian-Croatians were accused of terrorism and sentenced to 15 years, each, in late 1970’s, serving 10. Vitomir Virkez (i.e. Vitomir Misimovic) became the Crown witness at the trial against the Croatian Six (Max Bebic, Vic Brajkovic, Tony Zvirotic, Joe Kokotovic and his brother Ilija Kokotovic, and Mile Nekic).

The bombshell that a Serb national (Vitomir Misimovic), posing as a Croatian, infiltrated into the Croatian Community and informed Yugoslav diplomats (UDBA) of activities of alleged terrorist acts by Croatians was initially revealed by the Australian ABC Television journalist Chris Masters in 1981.

Yugoslav UDBA’s (secret police) role in the persecution of the Croatian Six in Australia was withheld at the trial by Australian officials. Former Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Fraser said that had the court known the information about UDBA’s involvement the verdict of the Croatian Six would have been not guilty.

Attempts to mount a judicial review of the case of the Croatian Six had failed in early 1990’s. One wonders how much of such a dismissal of the request for judicial review in Australia had to do with the fact that Serbs had waged a war in Croatia and had at that time occupied one third of it? Politics can get nasty and find its ways in all walks of life; often oblivious of justice.

This is just one of many examples how the Serb-led Communist Yugoslavia secret police (UDBA) worked around the world in their task of blackening the Croatian communities as extremists, terrorists. The full story “Framed” can be purchased via amazon.com for a mere US$1.99. It promises to offer an eye-opening read into the ways whole nations can be branded with a heavy stigma that future generations could spend a century, if not more, in trying to remove. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

A quote to relate: “It may be” said Cadfael, “that our justice sees as in a mirror image, left where right should be, evil reflected back as good, good as evil, your angel as her devil. But God’s justice, if it makes no haste, makes no mistakes.” (Ellis Peters, 1913 – 1995, The Potter’s Field)