Mick Gatto says friend Faruk Orman’s jail release through Lawyer X scandal ‘terrific’
As Faruk Orman enjoys freedom after his release from prison, his friend Mick Gatto says he hopes others caught up in the Lawyer X scandal follow Mr Orman out of jail.
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Mick Gatto says he hopes more people wronged by the Lawyer X scandal are freed from jail following the release of Faruk Orman.
The 37-year-old became the first gang war conviction to be overturned as a result Nicola Gobbo’s role as a police informer.
Mr Gatto, a longtime friend of Mr Orman, said the outcome was “terrific” after the Court of Appeal found a “substantial miscarriage of justice” had occurred.
“I think it’s terrific that justice has finally arrived,” Mr Gatto, who helped to bankroll Mr Orman’s original legal defence, told the Sunday Herald Sun yesterday.
“And I hope all the people involved in this conspiracy are treated accordingly.”
Mr Orman spent 12 years in jail over the execution of infamous underworld heavy Victor Peirce, shot dead in his car in Port Melbourne in 2002.
His is the first gang war conviction to be overturned as a result of Victoria Police’s recruitment of lawyer Nicola Gobbo — also known as Lawyer X — as a secret informer on her clients.
Other prisoners appealing their convictions on the Lawyer X principle include drug lord Tony Mokbel, ecstasy trafficker Rob Karam and methamphetamine cook Zlate Cvetanovski.
Mr Orman was alleged to have been the driver for hitman Andrew “Benji’’ Veniamin in the 2002 murder, but the case against him relied heavily on the evidence of a criminal associate who had also been represented by Gobbo.
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Legal experts believe Mr Orman will be entitled to millions of dollars in compensation after the court’s ruling on Friday.
The High Court of Australia in November described Victoria Police’s use of Gobbo to inform on her clients as “reprehensible conduct’’, prompting a Royal Commission.