John Nikolic safer in Suva prison than outside

Yvette Nikolic may be free but one can only imagine there are dangerous people owed money in Colombia who will not be happy at the result.

“Mission accomplished”, John Nikolic’s lawyer declared to his colleague and Yvette’s barrister, as a Suva High Court judge found the mother of two not guilty on drug charges and allowed her to walk free on February 18.

According to News Corp Australia sources who were in the courtroom that day, Yvette wept.

The tears appeared to be of joy and relief they said, but also, perhaps, partially of sorrow, at leaving her husband and the father of their children behind in a Suva prison.

John, on the other hand, shed no tears. He appeared ‘lighter’, happier and years younger in a matter of minutes following the verdict, and, for the first time throughout the lengthy court proceedings, was observed to smile.

“It was as if a huge weight had lifted off his shoulders,” a local reporter said.

“Almost as if he was free now too.”

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John Nikolic was found guilty of all charges at by three accessory at the High court in Suva. Picture: Gary Ramage

The lightness remained today, as John was found guilty of drug smuggling.

He showed no emotion as Justice Daniel Goundar handed down his verdict.

Mission accomplished. Yvette was free. Back in Melbourne, with their “babies”.

If those following the case closely — as News Corp Australia has done over the eight months since Shenanigans was raided at Denarau Marina — have doubted the Nikolics’ not guilty pleas, they have not doubted the couple’s depth of affection for each other, as they shared time together in the courtroom.

The prosecution in the Nikolics’ High Court trial asserted John’s suicide attempt during the June 22 raid was the act of a guilty man but also of a loving husband.

He had provided to Yvette — with his admissions to authorities, acceptance of sole responsibility for the 13 bars of cocaine found on the yacht and conversations with his wife on the boat — the gift of “a life raft of a false defence”, lead prosecutor, Lee Burney said in his opening.

Yvette Nikolic is back in Melbourne.

If Yvette knew the sailing “adventure of a lifetime” she was taking with her long-time husband from Florida to Fiji — via Colombia and Panama — was really a drug run, there was no evidence presented in court to prove it.

Perhaps it was just good luck the yacht — renamed Shenanigans by the Nikolics — was purchased in Yvette’s name, paving the way for it to be returned to her.

John was heard to tell Yvette during the raid he owed “dangerous people” a lot of money and “a Colombian” had put something in a bag on the yacht. The something was cocaine.

The Colombian cocaine will now be destroyed in Fiji.

Yvette may be free — and John immeasurably lightened by that fact — but one can only imagine there are dangerous people owed money in Colombia who will not be happy at the result, and John may be safer in notorious Suva prison than out of it.

It is also possible he does not yet know the Fiji Director of Public Prosecutions is considering appealing the acquittal of his wife.

Originally published as John Nikolic safer in Suva prison than outside