Lawyer alleges AFP tip off lead to John and Yvette Nikolic drug bust
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police tipped off Fijian authorities to the possibility of drugs on the luxury yacht of Yvette and John Nikolic, a Fijian criminal and human rights lawyer says.
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AUSTRALIAN Federal Police tipped off Fiji authorities to the possibility of drugs on the luxury yacht of Yvette and her husband John Nikolic, a Fiji criminal and human rights lawyer said on Friday.
“From my sources on the inside I have been told Australian Federal Police were involved on this occasion,” Mr Aman Ravindra-Singh exclusively told the Herald Sun in Lautoka.
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“The Australian Federal Police was involved and provided the tip which lead to the raid and the subsequent arrest of the Australian couple on the yacht at Denarau,” he said.
“In my experience Fijian police would not have had the intelligence or capacity to know there was a certain amount of drugs on a yacht so obviously there would have had to have been overseas assistance which led to the subsequent raid and capture.
“I am absolutely certain of that.”
Former Melbourne horse trainer John Nikolic, 45, remains in Laukota hospital after drinking a toxic cocktail of liquid cocaine and a white powder, understood to be methamphetamine, either during or after the raid by Fiji Customs and police on the yacht Shenanigans last Thursday.
Mr Ravindra-Singh said Mr Nikolic would be under police guard and his visitors would be few and strictly supervised.
His wife, Yvette, is on serious drug charges and currently on remand in Lautoka Women’s Corrections Center — potentially facing life in a Fiji jail — for her part in allegedly attempting to smuggle a large quantity of drugs.
She is due to face court in Lautoka on Wednesday.
Picture: Mark Stewart
John Nikolic’s brother, jockey Danny Nikolic, and parents Karen and John (Snr) Nikolic have been seen by News Corp Australia visiting their gravely ill family member.
They are also on Ms Nikolic’s prison visitor list.
The AFP and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton refused to comment on whether AFP had been involved in the tip off to Fiji police when asked on Friday, with AFP saying it was a Fijian Police matter.
But the Fijian police force has trumpeted how “closely” it works with the AFP on “the interception of hard drugs”.
Picture: Facebook
A Fiji police press release from February on a meeting between the Australian High Commissioner to Fiji John Feakes and Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho hails “recent success stories” in intercepting illegal drugs as a result of close co-operation between the two police forces.
Mr Aman Ravindra-Singh said the AFP was using Fiji to do its dirty work, and drew a comparison with the AFP’s tip off to Indonesia about the Bali Nine, which ended in two executions.
“The drugs (on Shenanigans) were not for the Fiji market, they were for the Australian market,” he said.
“Fiji is just used as a transit point. What the AFP has done and continues to do is use outside jurisdiction to arrest and then that system hands out very heavy and stiff penalties.
“Obviously if these people had been caught in Australia, quite obviously the penalties would have been lower and proportionate to the alleged offending.
“Here we have the AFP using the Fiji jurisdiction to carry out its dirty work so all of sudden we are a proxy of the AFP and the Australian government.”
Photo: Waisea Nasokia/Fiji Sun
Fijians could receive a sentence of 11 years or more for cultivating marijuana, so foreigners in possession of hard illicit drugs were likely to face harsh sentences.
“My professional view as a legal practitioner is the sentences are disproportionate in Fiji. Obviously it is not right, if you are going to get life for murder and rape are you’re going to get the same for drugs … it does not make sense. It’s a violation of human rights,” Mr Ravindra-Singh said
Fiji’s Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) said 13 bars of cocaine worth as much as $20 million (AUD), 65 ecstasy tablets and $20,000 (AUD) of undeclared cash were found on board Shenanigans when it was raided.
Two guns — a revolver and a Smith and Wesson — and 97 rounds of ammunition were also discovered on the yacht the pair purchased last year to sail the tropical Pacific Islands on what they called the “adventure of a lifetime”.
Maps of the pair’s odyssey show they travelled to Columbia in South America, to Panama, and then set sail across the Pacific.
FRCS CEO, Visvanath Das, said Fiji authorities had dutifully exposed, and put a stop to, “a smuggling attempt” in intercepting and raiding the boat.
The Nikolics are believed to have purchased Shenanigans late last year, with the 13.6m catamaran registered with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on January 3.
Southport on the Gold Coast in Queensland is listed as its home port.