Tony Mokbel’s barrister says police delays ‘undermining’ authority of court

Tony Mokbel’s barrister has accused Victoria Police of weighing down the drug lord’s bid for freedom in a “quagmire” of delays.

The tug of war between Tony Mokbel and Victoria Police chief commissioner Shane Patton over secret documents the drug lord wants to help him get out of jail is turning bitter.

Mokbel’s barrister Ruth Shann SC told a Supreme Court directions hearing on Monday she was “running out of adjectives’’ to describe police delays in finding and producing documents relevant to Mokbel’s appeal, dubbing it a “procedural quagmire’’ that was “undermining the authority of the court’’.

But barrister Sashi Maharaj SC, for the chief commissioner, told the hearing a substantial amount of work had been done and there remained concerns surrounding privacy.

Many of the documents are also on a “hold’’ list and will be released to Mokbel’s legal team on February 3.

Mokbel, who remains in isolation in Barwon Prison, is attempting to overturn his drug trafficking convictions and walk free from jail this year.

Tony Mokbel flashes a grin as he’s led into the Supreme Court in 2011.

The gangland drug lord has already had a court win after having his 2006 conviction for importing 3kg of cocaine quashed in December, 2020, due to the Lawyer X scandal.

Mokbel and Lawyer X — criminal barrister turned police informer Nicola Gobbo — had a close relationship during his time as Australia’s most flamboyant drug dealer in the late 1990s and 2000s.

Gobbo snitched on Mokbel while acting as his lawyer and also attempted to help police track him down after he became a fugitive and fled Australia for Greece in 2006.

Nicola Gobbo. Picture: ABC

She then gave him legal advice while informing on him following his capture in Athens in 2007.

But there will be court fights over the next few months surrounding secret police files the force are unwilling to hand over to Mokbel’s legal team.

At least some of these hearings will be heard in closed court.

Some of the material already given to Mokbel’s legal team is so sensitive his lawyers have made undertakings not to reveal the contents of the documents to him.

There are also major gaps in the agreed facts in Mokbel’s case which a court will rule upon.

It includes Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions disputing the extent of the professional relationship the drug baron had with Gobbo.

Mokbel, 56, pleaded guilty in 2011 to a series of state and federal drug trafficking convictions.

It is these convictions he wants overturned.

He was sentenced to 30-years jail with a minimum 22-years before being eligible for parole.

Mokbel’s earliest release date was set for 2033.