Victoria’s top cops, lawyers may face witness box in drug kingpin Tony Mokbel’s appeal bid
A wish list of 36 witnesses who drug kingpin Tony Mokbel hopes will be grilled on the stand in his fight for freedom has been revealed – and it features a bevy of prominent names.
Police & Courts
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Top gangland cops, former police chief commissioners and a Supreme Court judge could all be hauled to the Supreme Court witness box by crime figure Tony Mokbel as he fights for freedom.
A wish list of witnesses the drug kingpin hopes to grill on the stand amid his appeal bid has been revealed, featuring a bevy of prominent legal and police figures, including former top cops Simon Overland and Graham Ashton, high-profile homicide officers Ron Iddles and Stuart Bateson and former Director of Public Prosecutions and now Supreme Court judge, Justice John Champion.
Conspicuous in its absence, the name Nicola Gobbo – or Lawyer X – does not appear despite the supergrass and barrister being the reason her former client is attempting to quash his conviction.
Among 36 names on Mokbel’s list of people to quiz are defence lawyers, police from the Source Development Unit, investigators, senior officers and prosecutors.
Coroner David Ryan – formerly of the Victoria Government Solicitor’s Office – could be called, along with ex-DPP Jeremy Rapke KC and former senior Crown prosecutor Geoffrey Horgan KC, who put away baby-faced killer Carl Williams.
The Crown plans to call just 11 witnesses in response, and has also named Justice Champion, who is currently presiding over a murder trial.
Those witnesses could be waiting between now and May to be dragged to court as Mokbel’s 12-week preliminary hearing kicks on, setting the groundwork before his future appeal.
Many of those named have already been questioned on the stand during the 2019-2020 Lawyer X Royal Commission, which found the use of Gobbo as a secret informer was a “systemic failure”.
By the 10th day of the hearing on Monday, just six witnesses had been called, including Mokbel himself who took the stand over four days.
Speaking for the first time about the Lawyer X saga, Mokbel claimed it was his barrister, Gobbo, who told him to flee Australia in 2006, warning him he was about to be charged with three counts of murder.
Mokbel ran to Greece, where he was arrested with his infamous black wig in 2007.
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