Secret police report claims Colin Winchester murdered by mafia hit

An explosive secret police report names two alleged assassins sent by the Italian mafia to kill former Australian Federal Police Assistant commissioner Colin Winchester.

Exclusive: An assassin suspected of the execution murder of Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester 30 years ago has been allegedly identified after a secret police review into Italian mafia operations in Australia.

Winchester was murdered with two shots to the back of his head outside his Canberra home in January 1989 in a crime that shocked the nation and led to the most exhaustive investigation in Australian criminal history.

The man dubbed “The Shepherd” revealed he was first questioned by police 30 years ago.

Despite Italian police intelligence later revealing two assassins dubbed “The Shepherds” had been dispatched to Australia in October 1988 to carry out a murder, Canberra public servant David Eastman was instead charged with the slaying before later being cleared.

News Corp Australia can reveal one of the “Shepherds” is a man living in suburbia with his Australian wife.

The Shepherd, who Italian police told the AFP back in 1990 was to carry out the murder then arrange to be married to a local mafia boss’s daughter to stay in the country, was this week found and spoken to by News Corp Australia.

The man admitted to being spoken to by police at the time of Winchester’s murder but denied having any involvement.

He said investigators accepted he was just an Italian migrant looking to start a new life in Australia.

Former Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester. Picture: Supplied

David Eastman was charged with Mr Winchester’s murder before later being cleared.

He said he was visiting family at the time of the murder. And as for links with Italian drug bosses, it was a coincidence since they all hailed from the same villages in Calabria, Italy.

“This is not me, the police are knocking on the wrong wall,” he said.

The second man identified as one of the two Shepherds left the country shortly after the slaying.

Eastman would spend 19 years in jail before an independent inquiry found a miscarriage of justice and ordered a retrial in which he was found innocent and handed $7m in compensation.

Now a broad AFP inquiry into the established Italian ’Ndrangheta mafia in Australia, first announced in 2018, has reopened previously closed files into the Winchester assassination.

That review is understood to have unearthed new information relating to The Shepherds, including underworld connections not previously established during the Winchester case.

That information points to a broader Italian criminal milieu featuring some of the biggest names in Italian drug crime in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland.

Former ACT Attorney-General and lawyer involved in the Eastman case Bernard Collaery. Picture Kym Smith

It specifically links the two Shepherds to drug plots and figures involved in cannabis plantations that Winchester and the AFP were allowing to be cultivated at the time of his murder in a bid to gather intelligence on the Mr Bigs of the Italian underworld.

Former ACT Attorney-General and lawyer involved in the Eastman case Bernard Collaery welcomed the AFP’s review of the “other hypothesis” of it having been a mafia hit, not least of all because the Winchester case remained a very high-profile unsolved murder.

“Since when does the killing of an assistant police commissioner fizzle out like this? I mean, this is not just a murder; if it is determined to be an assassination of the highest level then it strikes at democracy,” Mr Collaery said.

Despite the review into Italian organised crime being a federal AFP investigation that reviewed evidence gathered by the then commonwealth arm of the AFP, the AFP headquarters has declined to comment – instead declaring it an ACT policing matter.

“As this is a matter for ACT Police we will have to refer you to them,” a spokesman said on Friday.

Former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer described the Eastman case as one of the most complex criminal trials in Australian history and a test of the AFP’s professionalism.

But late on Sunday, In a statement on Sunday night, the AFP declared there was no open investigation into the Winchester matter and “no recent” review.

“Our thoughts are always with the Winchester family,” a spokesperson said.

Despite the AFP’s own intelligence and reports on the ‘ndrangheta referencing the Italian Mafia and the Winchester case including reports from Italian counterparts, the spokesperson said there “is no evidence to suggest Italian organised crime was responsible for the death of one of our own”.

Since the AFP’s original murder investigation, The Shepherd has also been convicted over a large-scale drug plot with other leading Italian crime figures, some of which are directly related to the infamous ANOM police sting last year, where police were able to tap into encrypted criminal messaging.

Within hours of the 1995 original guilty Eastman murder judgment, the then AFP commissioner Mick Palmer described the case as one of the most complex criminal trials in Australian history and a test of the AFP’s professionalism, which he concluded was “exceptional”.

It would be several years later in 2014 before an independent judicial inquiry would brand the case as “deeply flawed” with false evidence given by prosecution witnesses. That led to a retrial that in November 2018 concluded Eastman – who had already served 19 years in jail – was not guilty of murder.

Even after this verdict the AFP has consistently dismissed suggestions its case was ever tainted or that any other suspect was ever in the frame.

An inquiry into the AFP’s handling of the case concluded there was no firm evidence to support the information given by the Italian police.

Originally published as Secret police report claims Colin Winchester murdered by mafia hit