Smuggle accused isolated in prison
A STRIP of bitumen and a few hundred metres is all that separates accused Australian drug smugglers John and Yvette Nikolic but they might as well be a million miles away from each other.
Remanded to Lautoka jails on opposite sides of ‘the prison road’, the lovebirds who for months spent nearly every moment together on the catamaran Shenanigans sailing the Pacific, will only potentially catch sight of each other now in High Court appearances, if their drugs and weapons charges are consolidated and heard together.
If convicted, former Melbourne and Gold Coast horse trainer John Nikolic, 45, may well be moved to another Fiji prison, possibly the notorious Suva jail where fellow Australian Ethan Kai is imprisoned.
Yvette, who has declared “I am innocent” via lawers Jason Murakami and Ron Behlau, is likely to remain in Lautoka Women’s Correction Centre if found guilty.
A father and ex-Sydney developer, Kai, was sentenced by the Lautoka High Court to 15 years in Suva prison in September 2015 (14 years with parole) after being convicted of one count of unlawful importation of illicit drugs, after smuggling $30 million of heroin from Thailand in quad bike tyres.
John Nikolic faced the Nadi Magistrates Court on Friday on drugs and weapons charges, after making a remarkable recovery from a reported overdose that saw him cared for in Lautoka’s intensive care unit.
Wife Yvette, 42, fronted Lautoka’s High Court on Wednesday on the same charges of possession and importation of illicit drugs and failure to declare guns and ammunition to Fiji customs authorities. Both are to face court for further mention on July 17 but police have been given until July 24 to file information and disclosures in Yvette’s case.
According to the Fiji Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions it is alleged 12.9kg of cocaine and 34.4g of methamphetamine and cocaine tablets – with an estimated value of between $20 and $30 million – was found on Shenanigans.
It is also alleged the Nikolics failed to declare two pistols and ammunition to customs officials.