Boris Beljajev

Beljajev is pictured left in 2007. He is hugging lawyer Robert Richter, QC, after being acquitted on a 2005 murder charge.

December 1987: Operation Ashcan begins, targeting Boris Beljajev and associates for suspected heroin trafficking.

September 19, 1988: Belalev's associate Alex Ristic arrested.

February 15, 1989: Ristic gets discounted sentence of four years, with a minimum of two years and three months. Ristic was believed to be a suspect in a series of society burglaries in the Toorak area during the 1980s.

February 17, 1989: Boris Beljajev arrested. Jack Hills arrested for importing 4kg of cocaine.

Hills "rolled over'' a month after he was arrested and told police he would give evidence for the prosecution.

February 22, 1989: Leslaw Kunz arrested.

May 8, 1989: Larry Lambert arrested.

May 24, 1989: Jack Hills pleads guilty in the County Court to one count of conspiracy to import cocaine. Gets discounted sentenced of 4 years with a minimum of two, rather than 11 years.

May 25, 1989: Hills given indemnity.

Hills served only three months in prison before Governor-General Bill Hayden agreed to sign an order releasing him into the custody of the AFP witness protection unit.

Sean Grant, barrister for one of Mr Beljajev's co-accused, Larry Lambert, later attacked the generosity of Hills' deal with the prosecution.

Taxpayers, he said, had paid for not only the star Crown witness's accommodation but top private cover membership in a health fund, prescription drugs, new glasses and hearing aid, telephone expenses of $100 a week, airline tickets when required, hire car fees, driver's licence and passport renewal.

Mr Grant put it to Hills that he was paid $700 a week tax-free while giving evidence.

He estimated that even while on "subsistence pay'' of $250 a week while not giving evidence, Hills' package was worth $56,000 a year, tax-free.

Hills agreed he would get a cash payment to help his resettlement after legal proceedings finally ended.

The Herald Sun said the AFP and Victoria Police jointly allocated almost $1.5 million for the witness's resettlement.

According to the man closest to him during the Beljajev trial, Jack Hills, the star Crown witness against Beljajev, was "a crook, a cheat and a lot of other things you wouldn't want your friends to be''.

But Bill Laing, the policeman who ran Operation Ashcan, said drug dealer Jack Hills was also a man of his word.

Hills spent a total of nearly a year in the witness box at the committal hearing and three trials during the Beljajev saga.

Hills, who speaks five languages, has been separated from the rest of his family since they went into the protection scheme.

His children have completed university studies under their new identities.

Hills is now divorced from his wife, who gave much briefer evidence for the prosecution, and is still under witness protection.

Mr Laing said he had been in constant contact with Hills.

"There wouldn't be two days I haven't spoken to him in all the years since he rolled over,'' he said.

"I've never lost sight of the fact that he was a crook, but his wife and two kids are innocent. It's been hard for all of them.

"He hasn't been in jail, but he's lived under a real threat.

"His name has changed regularly, and he hasn't been able to go out and earn a living because he's had to be available for court over such a long period.''

May 1989: Hills pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to import cocaine and was sentenced to four years' jail, with a minimum of two, in consideration of the assistance he was giving investigators.

County Court Judge Graeme Crossley said when sentencing Hills that he would have got 11 years if he hadn't co-operated with police.

Hills was taken back to a maximum security cell at Pentridge, but soon afterward was released into the custody of the Australian Federal Police witness protection scheme.

Events after his defection confirmed that he needed protection.

May 29, 1989: Committal proceedings against Beljajev and Kunz begin.

June 22, 1989: Committal adjourned.

August 12, 1989: Hills released into witness security program.

October 18, 1989: Committal resumes, including Lambert.

January 1990: The Hills family home in Caulfield was badly damaged by a fire bomb thrown through the front door.

Hills' wife received death threats soon after he "rolled over'' and she was also put in the witness protection scheme with their two children.

May 14, 1990: Kunz committed for trial on heroin trafficking charges.

June 29,1990: Lambert directly presented on heroin charges.

July 13, 1990: All defendants indicted for trial.

August 30, 1990: Judge Michael Kelly directs trial to be listed for February 1991.

October 1990 - April 1991: Nine mention proceedings, applications by accused for separate trials, applications for severance of cocaine and heroin trials.

April 10, 1991: Beljajev and Kunz granted bail by Judge Kelly.

April 24, 1991: Bail revoked by Supreme Court.

September 16, 1991: Beljajev and Kunz bailed by Judge Kelly.

November 4, 1991: Beljajev pleads not guilty to cocaine charges.

June 22, 1992: Cocaine trial of Beljajev begins.

May 10, 1993: Beljajev found not guilty on three counts of conspiring to import cocaine, hung jury on two other counts.

August 16, 1993: Heroin charges consolidated in single count, trial listed for February 16, 1994.

April 21, 1994: Judge directs formal acquittal of Beljajev on two outstanding cocaine counts.

November 9, 1995: Judge Kelly disqualified on the grounds of apprehended bias.

April 3, 1996: Heroin trial listed for mention before Judge Frank Dyett.

June 4, 1997: Jury of 15 empanelled.

November 1997: National Crime Authority surveillance officers took photograph in trendy Chapel St, South Yarra. A smartly dressed shopper in its' right was described only as an unknown male.

The NCA's target was the man in the middle, Milorad Dapcevic, who was a suspect in a drug investigation called Operation Rhouris.

Dapcevic was being watched because he had offered an undercover policeman posing as a drug buyer 4.5kg of heroin for $950,000.

But when a sharp-eyed detective saw the surveillance picture and identified Dapcevic's companion as Boris Beljajev his days of freedom were numbered.

Mr Beljajev was on bail at the time, and nearing the end of a commercial heroin-trafficking trial at the County Court that threatened to send him to jail for a long time.

In the fortnight after the photograph was taken Dapcevic was seen to have several more meetings with Mr Beljajev, and others with Asian men who had flown in from Sydney.

An undercover operative later told a Supreme Court bail hearing that information gleaned from conversations with Dapcevic convinced him that Mr Beljajev was linked to the heroin on offer.

Mr Beljajev said he had nothing to do with the heroin deal and his relationship with Dapcevic was "purely social''.

But the policeman's evidence also convinced the judge hearing Mr Beljajev's first heroin trial that he could be involved with the heroin deal.

The Crown also put to the judge details of Mr Beljajev's $4.97 million gambling turnover and $260,320 losses during the previous two years at Crown casino while he was on bail and on the dole.

On December 1, 1997, Mr Beljajev's bail was revoked by Judge Frank Dyett and he was sent back to jail.

He had already spent 2 1/2 years remanded in custody.

Two more judges later agreed -- after the trial jury was deadlocked 11-1 and discharged without verdict -- that he was an unacceptable risk and refused appeals to free him on bail.

Judge Michael Higgins, who later presided over Mr Beljajev's third trial, found on February 8, 2000 that on the balance of probability Dapcevic was negotiating a heroin deal on behalf of Mr Beljajev.

He refused to grant bail and Mr Beljajev was sent back to jail to await his third trial.

By the time the trial ended with an acquittal, he had spent a total of more than 5 1/2 years remanded in custody since being charged on February 17, 1989.

Dapcevic, despite being on parole when he was arrested by the NCA as the heroin deal was done, was given bail by a Sydney court and failed to appear to answer charges against him.

The third man in the surveillance photo, Michael La Verde, pleaded guilty in 1998 to taking part in the supply of heroin and was sentenced to three years' jail with a minimum of 18 months.

January 2, 1998: Jury discharged after 11-1 deadlock, bail application refused.

October 12, 1998: Kunz granted bail.

November 4, 1998: First pre-trial mention for new trial.

July 15, 1999: Jury of 15 empanelled.

July 19, 1999: Third trial begins.

October 4, 2000: Jury retires.

October 13, 2000: Not guilty verdict.

Mr Beljajev and two other men, Leslaw Kunz and Larry Lambert, were acquitted on October 13, 2000 after after a 15-month retrial.

Mr Beljajev was on remand for 5 1/2 years before he was finally cleared after three trials of cocaine and heroin charges.

Together with Sonya Szajntop, they had been charged with trafficking nearly 16kg of pure heroin between July 1, 1988 and February 17, 1989.

Boris Beljajev, described as charming by the Sunday Age, was acquitted in October 2000 of commercial drug trafficking charges laid nearly 12 years earlier.

On April 4, 2001, the last act in the $40 million legal circus played to an audience of one in the County Court.

Beljajev was the only spectator when his de facto wife finally walked free of the same charges.

Sonya Szajntop was discharged from bail after Judge Michael Higgins accepted a notice of no prosecution entered by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

Ms Szajntop, 45, spent 13 months in custody on remand after she and Mr Beljajev were arrested by a joint police task force on February 17, 1989.

She was on bail ever since, while the longest and costliest case in Australian criminal history meandered through the legal system from the Melbourne Magistrates' Court to the High Court.

The estimated total cost to taxpayers for the police investigation, witness protection, legal aid and court costs was about $40 million.

Judge Higgins rejected a defence submission that he should direct a formal acquittal of Ms Szajntop.

He said the Crown was entitled to announce it would not proceed with the charge against her, and he did not regard it as an abuse of process.

Judge Higgins said although the Crown retained the right to reinstate the charge at a later date, the chances of her being prosecuted were infinitesimal.

It would be up to a future trial judge to decide whether there had been an abuse of process if Ms Szajntop was ever presented for trial.

DPP solicitor Sean O'Sullivan told an earlier hearing the decision to withdraw the prosecution was based on the delay so far, the likely length of a trial and the result of Mr Beljajev's last trial.

The charge was withdrawn despite his contention that the case against Ms Szajntop was "enormously strong''.

Judge Higgins said at a pre-trial hearing in December 2000 his assessment of her was that she "played a not insignificant role in the trafficking of heroin''.

Another County Court judge, Frank Dyett, said after Mr Beljajev's second trial jury was discharged without verdict three years ago, that he thought the evidence of guilt against him was "overwhelming''.

Colourful Melbourne legal identity, Alex Lewenberg, was not in the dock during the marathon Boris Beljajev trial but he was accused of being Mr Beljajev's accomplice.

The Crown claimed the city solicitor was the legal adviser to Mr Beljajev's alleged heroin trafficking business. 

Senior prosecutor Brind Woinarski, QC, told the jury at the opening of the trial in July 1999 that Mr Lewenberg's Queen St office was under audio and video surveillance by a joint police task force in 1988.

An earlier court hearing was told a police surveillance team followed and photographed Mr Lewenberg when he was in Queensland with Mr Beljajev during a police taskforce investigation.

"Like all big businesses, you need a solicitor,'' Mr Woinarski told the jury. "This business had a solicitor. It had Mr Lewenberg.''

Prosecutor Richard Pirrie also claimed Mr Lewenberg tried to "derail'' committal proceedings against one of Mr Beljajev's alleged main dealers, Alex Ristic, by planning false defences after Ristic was arrested in 1988.

Mr Pirrie told the court Mr Lewenberg was heard on tapes secretly recorded in his city office "talking about burning Alex Ristic alive if he blabs to the police about Beljajev''.

Ms Szajntop's barrister, David Ross QC, told a pre-trial hearing in 1997 that her defence was to have been that Mr Beljajev's involvement in drugs and other crimes was even greater than was alleged at his trial.

Mr Ross said Ms Szajntop's defence would be that Mr Beljajev was involved in heroin and cocaine trafficking, stolen jewellery and guns, but she was innocent.
Mr Ross said at a hearing in February that ``the prosecution's sword of Damocles'' would be hanging over Ms Szajntop's head until the end of her days unless she was acquitted by direction.

Mr Ross argued that Ms Szajntop could never say she was innocent if the notice of no prosecution was entered.

Hills told the County Court he was born in Russia, but left as an infant and lived most of his life in the Middle East and Europe before coming to Australia with $1 million in the mid-1970s.

Discrediting him as a liar and a career criminal whose evidence could not be believed was a key plank in the defence strategy in all three trials.

A dozen different defence barristers, including some of the most experienced QCs in the land, took turns at attacking him and trying to convince three juries that he was an unreliable witness.

The legal tag teams accused him of international drug trafficking, smuggling and insurance fraud, as well as chronic and consistent dishonesty.

They quoted transcripts of his previous evidence at legal proceedings stretching back to 1989 in an effort to expose any inconsistencies in his story.

But Hills, who repeatedly assured defence counsel and the jury that he was telling the truth "100 per cent'', stood firm.

Indeed, on the first day of cross-examination in the last trial he was so aggrieved by a suggestion that he was lying that he insisted his answer to the previous question was "200 per cent true''.

Whatever, there was no dispute at either end of the bar table when the witness later provided his own character analysis while conceding he had a dubious past.

"I never said I was an 18-carat gold rabbi,'' Hills said with a wry smile.

That acknowledgment -- despite years of rabbinical studies as a child -- came just after he explained the difference between a tip and a bribe.

A bribe, he told the court, was paid before the event while a tip came later.
On another occasion he denied a defence allegation of theft and when asked how he described the incident suggested it was merely "a deal favourable to me''.

The defence focused repeatedly on another favourable deal Hills did -- the one that put him in the witness box rather than the dock.

Mr Beljajev's barrister Nick Papas put it to Hills that he'd done "the deal of the century'' with police after they caught him red-handed with 4kg of cocaine smuggled in from South America on February 17, 1989.

"We say he sucked in the police. We say the police lost judgment because of their desperation to get Beljajev,'' Mr Papas told the jury.

"They have sold their souls, effectively, to get Beljajev''

Mr Grant also revealed that prior to the cocaine trial in 1992, Hills was sent at taxpayers' expense to a health farm where he played tennis and enjoyed more than his allotted number of massages.

Hills denied he had turned informer because his lawyers told him he was facing a sentence of 10 to 15 years' jail for cocaine importation.

"This did not make me talk to the police,'' he said.

"The time of serving jail did not worry me. I did not do it because of the jail.''

Hills told the court he gave evidence because he was very sorry and ashamed.
"Nobody has to give me any carrots to be here,'' he said.

Mr Laing said the cost of protecting Hills and his family for the past 11 1/2 years had been unprecedented in his experience.

After last Friday's verdict he must be wondering whether the $10 million bill was money well spent.

Boris Beljajev, 54, of Balaclava was alleged to have killed Alexandra Ristic 52, in Balaclava.

Mr Ristic was found by passers-by in Sycamore Grove.

It is believed a male aged in his 40’s wearing a light coloured trench coat approached two males sitting on a brick fence outside units on the corner of Glen Eira Avenue and Grosvenor Street in Balaclava.

Detectives believe that these men then had an argument.

It appears that the two men then left the area in a four wheel drive vehicle.

Approximately 30 minutes later a man matching the description of the man in the trench coat was seen leaving the area where Alex Ristic was killed.

Alex Ristic was seen with a female before the stabbing.

Det-Sgt Martin Robertson said investigators could not be certain what Ristic was doing in Sycamore Grove.

He lived in East Bentleigh with his wife and two children.

He would not rule out that the fatal stabbing might have been random or was linked to Ristic's criminal background.

"We can't say specifically whether it was drug-related or something else entirely," he said.

Beljajev was remanded in custody. He was later acquitted.

On August 19, 2007, the Sunday Age reported that after shooting down the prosecution's case against his client Boris Beljajev (the judge agreed Boris had no case to answer), top gun Robert "The Red Baron" Richter, QC, and instructing solicitor Theo Magazis were plotting their client's next case - a huge damages suit against the Chief Commissioner of Police, the DPP and possibly the state of Victoria as well.

"We are considering the actions available for damages for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office," says Richter.

He spent 21 months on remand for the Ritsic murder charge.