The Croatian Six (Croatian:Hrvatska šestorka, consisting of Max Bebić, Vic Brajković, Tony Zvirotić, Joe Kokotović, his brother Ilija Kokotović and Mile Nekić[1]) were sixCroatian-Australian men sentenced to 15 years jail in 1981 for aconspiracy to bomb several targets inSydney,[2] including aYugoslaviantravel agent, the formerElizabethan Theatre in Newtown and a majorwater supply line in St Marys in western Sydney.[3] The trial was one of the longest in Australian legal history,[3] occupying 172 sitting days and with 111 witnesses giving testimonies.[4] An appeal for these convictions and sentences failed,[5] and the men were subsequently imprisoned for 10 years before being released in 1991.[6]
Media investigations since the trial, such as for the ABC'sFour Corners programme andThe Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, suggested that much of the evidence on which the six were charged was fabricated and that the men were set up as part asting operation by the Yugoslav foreignintelligence service,UDBA. Intelligence sources later confirmed that Dr Georgi Trajkovski, the Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne, was a UDBA operative and a key player in the Croatian Six set up.[7][8] Disgraced former detectiveRoger Rogerson, one of the arresting officers, later admitted thatplanting evidence during the 1970s and 80s was part of police culture.[9] Australianinvestigative journalist Chris Masters revealed in 1991 that chief witness of the case, known by the name of Vice Vrkez, was actually UDBA's agent Vitomir Misimović, who infiltrated in Croatian community in Australia.[1]
The case also drew attention from John Schindler, then at theUS Naval War College, who claimed that the Croatian Six affair was "a 'classic'agent provocateur operation run by the intelligence agency of the then communist regime inBelgrade, known as theUDBA, against exile communities that were against the Yugoslavian federation."[3] He also claimed that former UDBA officials said that the Croatian Six case was "one of their great successes" in completely discrediting the Croatian Australian community. According to Schindler,Australian Security Intelligence Organisation would have (or at least should have) been aware of UDBA's involvement.[3]
Ian Cunliffe, formerly a senior lawyer in theDepartment of Prime Minister and Cabinet, claimed intelligence material was withheld that would have resulted in not guilty verdicts for the Croatian Six. This material was purposely kept from thenPrime MinisterMalcolm Fraser and subpoenas by defence lawyers in the trial were not allowed on "national security grounds".[3]
In 2012, three of the surviving five men — Max Bebić, Mile Nekić and Vic Brajković — represented by human rights lawyer Sebastian De Brennan, applied to theNSW Supreme Court for ajudicial review of their convictions.[3] This application was dismissed.[10]
In August 2022 the NSW Supreme Court ordered a review into the convictions based on thedeclassification of relevantASIO's documents.[11] The Supreme Court of New South Wales concluded its inquest into the 1981 conviction in mid-November 2024. Over the course of a year, more than 25 former police officers were questioned about the arrests and investigation. In the final week of the hearings, cross-examination of witnesses focused on Vice Virkez, the man who reported the alleged conspiracy to Lithgow police in February 1979 and who was found to have been in contact with the then-SFRJ consulate in Sydney.[12]
