Nikola Stedul shooter caught due to Fife Free Press article

A KIRKCALDY man spoke of the October 1988 morning he unwittingly helped bring a hit-man to justice.
By The Newsroom
Published 18th Oct 2018, 08:41 BST
Updated 18th Oct 2018, 10:22 BST

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Police on the scene in GlenLyon Road in October 1988.Police on the scene in GlenLyon Road in October 1988.
Police on the scene in GlenLyon Road in October 1988.

Postal officer Eric Martin revealed that he had noted the registration number of Vinko Sindicic’s hired car after reading in the Fife Free Press about the number of break-ins in the area.

It was this information which enabled police to capture Sindicic at Heathrow Airport within hours of the attempt on the life of Nikola Stedul.

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Mr Martin, of Glendale Park, recalled how he looked out of his front window on the morning of Wednesday, October 19, 1988, to see a black Mini Metro with a man sitting in it parked beside his daughter’s own Metro.

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• MAIN ARTICLE: The Kirkcaldy assassination attempt that shocked the world

• Who is Nikola Stedul

• “I was woken by bullets flying through my window”

• The forensic evidence in the gunman’s trial

• Where the guns were found discarded near Kirkcaldy

• The victim speaks: “Justice has caught up with a wanted assassin”

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”Later, when I used my daughter’s car to drive my wife to work, we could see the man still sitting there, but the windows were misted over so we could not see him properly. However, when I switched on the headlights, he ducked away from the glare.

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“I returned to the house about 15 minutes later, and shortly after that he drove off. If someone else had got into the car, I would not have been suspicious, but he drove off alone so I wrote the registration number down on an envelope.

“There are always reports of break-ins in the Fife Free Press, and it went through my mind that he was watching which houses were left empty as people went to work.

“The next morning as I was taking my wife to work, an ambulance had just drawn up in Glen Lyon Road, and they were treating Mr Stedul, who was lying in his garden,” Mr Martin went on.

“I assumed he had suffered a heart attack, and it was not until I returned that I heard about the shooting. I approached a police constable and told him about the car, and within minutes the house was full of police.” he added.

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Related topics:KirkcaldyHeathrow Airport