SLAIN AUSTRALIAN MP FEARED CORRUPT COPS

October 31, 2012
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TEAM UZUNOV exclusive

NSW LABOR MP FEARED CORRUPT COPS BEFORE ASSASSINATION

by Sasha Uzunov

John Newman, a Labor Party New South Wales State Member of Parliament who was assassinated by a political rival in 1994, feared corrupt NSW Police before his death, a former Yugoslav diplomat now living in Australia has revealed in his unpublished memoirs.

Miodrag Ilickovic, a Montenegrin, who is is now living in Australia after being granted political asylum because of his opposition to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, has written a manuscript in Serbian and is trying to get it published as a book in English or Serbian.

His memoir is titled: Uloga Australije u Razbijanju Jugoslavije -Australia’s role in the destruction of Yugoslavia.

Ilickovic (pictured below) was posted to the Yugoslav Consulate in Sydney in 1990 and was tasked with reopening it after it had been closed down for 2 years by the Australian government–a 16 year old Croat protester Josip Tokic whilst climbing a wall was shot by a consular guard in 1988. Ilickovic accused the Australian authorities, in his manuscript, of inadequate security, whilst the Australian media at the time condemned the Yugoslav government for the shooting.


He says in his manuscript that he met John Newman on numerous occasions in the NSW Parliament on official business.

Newman, whose real name is Naumenko, was the son of a Ukrainian father and a Slovenian mother.

Slovenia was a part of Yugoslavia until its independence in 1991.

Ilickovic says that he and Newman would discuss issues relating to Slovenian migrants living in Australia.

“Because of his openness and willingness to help was popular among expatriates.”

Newman was an anti-crime campaigner and came under threat from Asian gangs predominant in his Cabramatta constituency in South-Western Sydney.

He was the Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (lower house) for the seat of Cabramatta from 1986 to 1994.

“He realized that the problem of crime in Cabramatta was far more complex, because it is part of a chain of organised crime to the police,”  Ilickovic says. 

Newman told Ilickovic: “The threat [to his life] could come from the police.”

In September 1994 Newman was assassinated outside his front door. Two shots were fired into him. 


Phuong Ngo, a local politician, was found guilty of orchestrating the murder.

Ilickovic gave an off camera interview to TEAM UZUNOV, to offer the other side in the story that TEAM UZUNOV has been following, that of Yugoslav spying in Australia of emigre Croats and Macedonians. Our documentary film UDBa Down Under, which details Yugoslav spying in Australia is due for release in early 2013.

His uncle Vladimir Rolovic, the Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden, was assassinated by Croatian nationalist in 1971. (go to link for the full story)

Other explosive claims made by Ilickovic in his manuscript 

Uloga Australije u Razbijanju Jugoslavije
-Australia’s role in the destruction of Yugoslavia-

–Thousands and thousands of files were kept on Australians hostile to the Yugoslav government and were seen by Ilickovic who found them in the Sydney consulate in 1990;

–Australian politicians and diplomats sympathetic to the Yugoslav regime passing on sensitive information to Belgrade; and

–In one example, two large sacks full of ASIO documents were handed over by “Australian friends” and given to a Yugoslav Embassy official and taken away in the boot (trunk) of a car and sent to Belgrade via the diplomatic pouch.

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