Frank Madafferi fighting to unearth documents on lawyer Joseph Acquaro’s informing
Jailed mafia boss Frank Madafferi’s lawyer has borrowed a line from TV comedy character Basil Fawlty, as he fights to reveal whether murdered lawyer Joseph Acquaro was a snitch.
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Jailed mafia boss Frank Madafferi has applied pressure on Victoria’s top cop — with his lawyer borrowing a line from TV comedy character Basil Fawlty — to reveal whether murdered mob lawyer Joseph Acquaro was a snitch.
In a Court of Appeal hearing held partly in secret, lawyers for Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton say he will not disclose whether Mr Acquaro, or anyone else, was an informer.
The Chief Commissioner is applying for “public interest immunity’’ to refuse Madafferi documents about Mr Acquaro’s dealings with the force. Mr Acquaro was Madafferi’s lawyer from 2000 until 2013.
Catherine Boston, for Madafferi, said her client was entitled to know “whether his longstanding solicitor was acting in his interests’’ or providing information about him to Victoria Police.
Ms Boston compared the question of Acquaro’s informer status to the case of barrister Nicola Gobbo, who was a secret police informer who betrayed her clients.
She said she was bewildered by the police’s latest submissions to the court, notably the force’s “failure’’ to cite the Gobbo rulings, in which Victoria Police’s conduct with Gobbo was described as “reprehensible’’.
This omission was, she said, “a bit Basil Fawlty-esque’’. She then added John Cleese’s famous line in Fawlty Towers: ‘’Don’t mention the war.’’
She said the Gobbo case had raised two questions as to whether those convicted had received independent legal advice and whether the prosecution had gained an unfair advantage by using her information.
Ms Boston said the disclosure of Mr Acquaro’s status would be substantial in appealing convictions.
She also referred to evidence and an email unearthed by the Lawyer X (Gobbo) royal commission widely believed to relate to Mr Acquaro as an informer.
Victoria Police revealed to anti-corruption body IBAC and the Lawyer X royal commission that one of their informers was a deceased lawyer whose homicide was part of an ongoing investigation.
Mr Acquaro was shot dead outside his Gelobar restaurant in March, 2016.
Wednesday’s court proceedings were later closed to the public, the media and even Madafferi and his lawyers for further submissions and oral argument.
If Mr Acquaro is revealed as a police informer, it may open the floodgates to successful appeals by mafia-connected drug traffickers.
MORE COURT NEWS:
LAIDLEY BACKED BY AFL STARS IN COURT’
Terrified prison guards ‘buying’ safety by bribing young inmates
Traumatised prison guards have lifted the lid on the desperate lengths some staff are going to protect themselves from violent young inmates, including bribing them with drugs and porn.
Victoria Police facing IBAC probe for ‘failing’ to tackle anti-Semitism crisis
Victoria Police may be probed by the anti-corruption watchdog over allegations it failed to crack down on the dangerous rise of anti-Semitism in the state.