Tony Mokbel’s bid for freedom interrupted by attack

Insiders say Tony Mokbel has ­become obsessed with the prospect of getting back into court, as the drug kingpin wrote longwinded letters prompted by revelations in the Lawyer X scandal, demanding his release.

Medical staff treat Tony Mokbel after he was stabbed in prison. Picture: AAP Image/Supplied by Nine News

Weeks ago Tony Mokbel was sending a poorly scripted legal letter, including to ­Victoria’s chief prosecutor, demanding his release from jail.

Mokbel, the most infamous inmate at Barwon Prison, is known to communicate with Russell St bomber Craig ­Minogue — a prison lawyer who almost certainly penned the longwinded letter espousing justice and overreaching with legal terms such as ­“habeas corpus’’.

In it, the drug lord even promised to expose corruption within Victoria Police and the judiciary.

MOKBEL STABBED IN PRISON ATTACK

MOKBEL: I WAS URGED TO FLEE

The letter was prompted by the Lawyer X scandal, which has already resulted in more than 20 prisoners including Mokbel being informed their convictions could be tainted due to her informing to police.

Mokbel had recently expressed hopes that the scandal involving his lawyer would see him released imminently.

But instead of walking from prison to a waiting car, his first trip outside the prison’s walls since his last medical emergency — a heart attack in 2012 — was by air ambulance in a critical condition.

web Mokbel Timeline 650 900

On Sunday, Mokbel, who runs his own rackets in prison, particularly the cigarette black market, would not have ­considered himself a target.

Insiders say Mokbel has ­become obsessed with the prospects of getting back into court.

Lawyer X had acted for Mokbel since hawking for his business during an unsolicited prison visit in 2001-2002.

Like six others in the “Mokbel Cartel’’, as Lawyer X described it, Mokbel was aware their lawyer had informed on them since the ­Herald Sun revealed the ­scandal in March, 2014.

An anti-corruption probe in 2015, conducted by Justice Murray Kellam, confirmed it.

On December 7, 2017, Mokbel launched a Supreme Court appeal on the Lawyer X principle, a year before it was confirmed by Director of ­Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd his case may have been tainted.

Since December, when the Andrews Government called a royal commission into the Lawyer X scandal, Mokbel has been trying to arrange representation by a legal team.

The underworld boss has struggled to find funding.

But he was still supremely confident that he would get out, telling people he was soon going to be a free man.

Lawyer X gave him irrefutable evidence after testifying to the Supreme Court in 2017 that she had informed on him, saying that her informing was motivated by getting the “Mokbel monkey’’ off her back.

Mokbel had long considered her dodgy.

He has even claimed that as his 2006 cocaine trial came towards its conclusion, it was Lawyer X who told him that police intended to charge him with the murders of Lewis Moran and Michael Marshall and that he should “f--- off” overseas.

If true, Lawyer X caused the largest international manhunt in Australian history, with authorities capturing Mokbel in Greece in 2007, 15 months after he fled.

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Originally published as Tony Mokbel’s bid for freedom interrupted by attack