Court fight to reveal mob lawyer Joseph Acquaro’s informer status

Police say they should not be forced to reveal whether mob layer Joseph Acquaro — gunned down in Brunswick in 2016 — was a police snitch.

Mourners lay flowers at Joe Acquaro’s murder scene. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The fight to reveal the informer status of slain mob lawyer Joseph Acquaro remains in the balance.

Chief Commissioner of Police, Shane Patton, has argued for the second time in as many weeks in Victoria’s Court of Appeal that he will not reveal whether Mr Acquaro was one of its secret snitches.

Jailed Calabrian mafia figure Saverio Zirilli, a member of the infamous 2007 Tomato Tins drug syndicate, is arguing police must disclose whether Mr Acquaro was used as a police informer because he was also an “officer of the court’’ who was his lawyer.

The court action comes almost two years after Victoria Police disclosed to the Lawyer X royal commission that one of its informers was a solicitor who had since died.

Mr Acquaro was killed in March 2016.

Zirilli’s lawyer, Adam Chernok, said his client was “boxing blindfolded’’ in his quest to gain disclosure about whether Mr Acquaro informed on him, or even his co-accused.

Joe Acquaro

Mr Chernok said the protection of an informer’s identity was “trumped’’ by the integrity of the justice system.

“The public interest in maintaining confidence in the ability of police to use confidential informers must be trumped by the interests of justice,’’ Mr Chernok said.

“We say that there is ... a public interest in revealing the identity.’’

Mr Acquaro represented Zirilli between 2008 and 2014.

But he also engaged criminal barrister-turned informer Nicola Gobbo to represent or give legal advice to his key Tomato Tins clients.

Ms Gobbo did so even though she had tipped-off police to the “Tomato Tins’’ importation, telling her handlers a container filled with 15 million ecstasy tablets was arriving at Melbourne’s docks in June, 2007.

She even handed them the shipping documents obtained from a client.

Last week mafia boss Francesco Madafferi, who is also linked to the syndicate, also applied to be told the informer status of Mr Acquaro.

In both cases the Court of Appeal was an open hearing before being adjourned and the court closed to the public for further argument.

Overall, 31 men and a woman were arrested and convicted over the massive seizure and subsequent offending in a series of court cases taking years.

Victoria Police’s barrister, Sashi Maharaj, said Zirilli’s contentions that Mr Acquaro was an informer while representing him and that he was “directly involved in securing convictions or at least complicit in Ms Gobbo doing so’’ was “unsustainable’’.

The force has previously argued it will claim public interest immunity in relation to any “human source’’.

It has long argued that revealing the identity any informer will have a “chilling’’ impact on other informers.

The force, however, does not contend anyone is in danger, including Mr Acquaro’s family, if his status was made public.

Mr Acquaro was killed outside his restaurant in Lygon St in Brunswick East.

In 2018, police arrested and charged another man, Vincent Crupi, with Mr Acquaro’s murder.

Homicide investigators have not linked Mr Acquaro’s death to the alleged contract on his life.

A trial is set to be heard next year.

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