Tony Mokbel’s cocaine importation conviction overturned

The quashing of Tony Mokbel’s cocaine importation conviction could be the first step in him walking free from jail.

Jailed drug boss Tony Mokbel has been given a boost in his bid to walk free from prison next year, with a cocaine ­trafficking conviction quashed in a surprise development on Tuesday.

Mokbel, 55, is appealing his jail terms on the grounds his disgraced barrister Nicola Gobbo, aka Lawyer X, was also a police informer.

The overturned 2006 conviction related to the importation of almost 2kg of ­cocaine from Mexico.

The gangland bigwig was sentenced in absentia to a minimum of nine years’ jail after he infamously fled overseas while on bail during the 2006 trial, sparking Australia’s biggest international manhunt.

Nicola Gobbo was informing on her clients, including Tony Mokbel.

Mokbel — caught in an Athens cafe in 2007 while wearing a wig as a disguise, and extradited from Greece in 2008 — has already served this portion of his sentence.

But he is still fighting multiple other drug trafficking convictions, to which he pleaded guilty in 2012.

He is serving a minimum of 22 years, and his earliest ­release date is still 2033.

The convictions were the result of police operations into Mokbel’s activities. Some charges were dropped, but could be reinstated if a retrial is ordered.

Gobbo was Mokbel’s junior barrister in the cocaine trial while also working as a Victoria Police informer.

During the 2006 Supreme Court trial, she fed police Mokbel’s legal strategies as informer 3838 — having been registered under that number the year before.

Mokbel, the nation’s most infamous one-time fugitive, was captured in Greece after a 15-month global manhunt.

He was flown back to Australia via private jet after failing in his fight against extradition from a Greek cell.

He will now argue his ­removal from Greece in 2008 was unlawful given he ­obtained advice from Gobbo, who divulged his legal strategies to her police handlers and the anti-gangland Purana task force.

Tony Mokbel with Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo.

His legal team will also contend many of his convictions were unfair after Gobbo set up an associate to be charged with offences and convinced him to give evidence against Mokbel.

The associate, known as Mr Cooper, was paid by police in secret to give evidence while he served his own prison term.

Dressed in a black suit and tie on Tuesday, Mokbel could be seen on video link listening carefully as his barrister Ruth Shann told the court his conviction was “untenable” given concessions by the commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions that his conviction should be quashed.

Rowena Orr QC, for the commonwealth DPP, said the usual process would be for a retrial to be ordered.

But given Mokbel had ­already served his term of imprisonment for this conviction, they would not be pursuing a fresh trial.

Nicola Gobbo was unmasked as Lawyer X.

Tony Mokbel was arrested in Athens.

Court of Appeal Justice Chris Maxwell said while the decision of retrial or acquittal would be made at a later date, the quashing of Mokbel’s conviction could be done so ‘’immediately’’.

“That’s something we can do today,” he said.

The judge said Mokbel’s case and other appeals launched as a result of the Lawyer X saga were a matter of “profound importance”.

“Those who have been the subject of this disgraceful ­behaviour by Ms Gobbo and by those who facilitated her work, they have an obligation by virtue of the impact on the criminal justice system to ensure that we, deciding the ­effect of those activities, have the full picture,” he said.

Mokbel grinned and thanked his legal team at the conclusion of the hearing.

The state DPP will contest Mokbel’s ongoing appeal, saying they “will not be conceding the appeal in relation to the three matters the state prosecuted in which Mokbel pleaded guilty”.