Date locked in for drug kingpin’s appeal hearing
Tara Cosoleto |
Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel’s long-awaited appeal hearing has been set down for four days in September.
Mokbel, who was bailed in April, grabbed a coffee with his lawyers and then smiled and joked with them inside the Victorian Court of Appeal ahead of his case on Friday morning.
During the 15-minute directions hearing, Judicial Registrar Deirdre McCann set down the four-day appeal to start on September 2.
Mokbel did not speak during the brief hearing but he was free to sit in the body of the courtroom, rather than in the dock.
The gangland figure is seeking his drug trafficking and importation convictions to be overturned because he was represented by barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo.
Ms Gobbo, a registered Victoria Police informer from 2005 to 2009, was acting as Mokbel’s lawyer for four years before he fled to Greece in 2006 and continued to advise him when he was extradited in 2008.
Mokbel pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking a drug of dependence for trafficking MDMA and methamphetamine in April 2011, after striking a deal with prosecutors.
He did not find out about Ms Gobbo’s status as an informer until the High Court lifted gag orders in 2018.
NSW Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Fullerton in November found police had perverted the course of justice in a “joint criminal enterprise” with Ms Gobbo to take down Mokbel.
She handed down the damning findings against the police and prosecutors as she ruled on legal questions relating to Mokbel’s appeal.
Those findings spurred Mokbel into applying for bail in April, after serving 18 years of his 26-year jail term.
Two appeal judges and a Supreme Court judge determined the strength of his appeal was one of the reasons why he should be released back into the community.
Mokbel has been following 30 bail conditions since his release on April 4, including daily police reporting, an 8pm to 6am curfew and wearing a GPS monitoring device.
His bail was also secured by a $1 million surety put up by his sister Gawy Saad.
The judicial registrar on Friday extended Mokbel’s bail to his September appeal hearing and also made orders for the parties to provide all material to the court by July 4.
The composition of the Court of Appeal bench that will hear the appeal is yet to be decided.
Mokbel ignored questions from reporters as he left court on Friday with his barrister Julie Condon KC.
AAP
