Top-flight lawyers join Mokbel fight for freedom

Tony Mokbel has hired the same barristers who fought for George Pell as he charts a long path to freedom.

Tony Mokbel has hired the same top flight barristers who fought for Cardinal George Pell in his bid to walk out of prison next year.

Sydney silk Bret Walker, SC, who successfully argued for the historical sexual abuse convictions of Cardinal Pell to be quashed by the High Court of Australia in April this year, has stepped in as Mokbel’s lead counsel.

And emerging top barrister Ruth Shann, who worked on Cardinal Pell’s case with Mr Walker, has also joined Mokbel’s legal team.

Mr Walker is among an elite group of barristers who can command up to $30,000 a day for their services.

In Mokbel’s case, however, it is unclear how the gangland kingpin is funding his appeal, which has been researched by no less than five lawyers on an ongoing basis since he launched his written case with the Supreme Court in December, 2017.

Mr Walker, who is always in high demand, is known for his sharp intellect, meticulous planning and no-nonsense courtroom demeanour.

He is more surgical than grandiose.

Tony Mokbel being escorted by Greek police.

Mokbel’s barrister Ruth Shann. Picture: AAP

Mr Walker will have Ms Shann’s expertise to rely on as they unravel Gobbo’s influence on Mokbel’s multiple convictions.

Ms Shann appeared for Mokbel on Tuesday in his first public court hearing since filing his Lawyer X appeal.

It was a win for Mokbel, who had his 2006 conviction over importing almost 2kg of pure cocaine quashed.

Mokbel, in 2006, had been sentenced to 12 years jail (with a minimum of nine years) in absentia – which he has already served in prison while concurrently serving a larger jail term for other major drug trafficking.

It was the very same trial Mokbel decided to flee, while on bail, after learning he was about to be charged with a gangland murder.

Six months earlier, Nicola Gobbo, his junior barrister in the trial, had been recruited as informer 3838 by Victoria Police.

Gobbo’s justification was to be “rid of Mokbel’’.

During the trial she fed her police handlers Mokbel’s defence strategies and also warned them that he was acting strangely towards the end of the case.

She was also setting up one of Mokbel’s associates to implode the Mokbel empire at the same time.

Critically, during a cafe meeting, Gobbo was told by a Purana taskforce detective Mokbel was going to be charged with a gangland murder.

Tony Mokbel remains a maximum security inmate at Barwon Prison. Picture: Peter Ristevski

Mokbel has claimed privately that Gobbo, his lawyer, warned him of the murder rap, urging him to “f--- off’’ while he could.

But it is far from over for Mokbel, who remains a maximum security inmate at Barwon Prison.

This court victory is not a get out of jail card for him.

Mr Walker will be relied upon at a more critical stage as Mokbel’s appeal over convictions for other major drug trafficking offences heads to the Court of Appeal next year.

That is why the decision to “brief” Mr Walker is a shrewd one by Mokbel.

Mokbel pleaded guilty in 2012 to a range of drug trafficking offences – namely under the operation names Quills, Orbital and Magnum.

Other drug charges were dropped during the plea negotiation.

In July 2012, after a protracted plea negotiation with the prosecution was settled, Mokbel was sentenced by Justice Simon Whelan to 30 years jail with a minimum of 22 years.

Mokbel then changed his mind, appealed, and lost.

His main argument on appeal was that his extradition was unlawful.

That remains a tenet of his argument in his current appeal.

It is based on the principle that after Mokbel was captured in Greece in June 2007, he called his old barrister, Nicola Gobbo.

The then bewigged Mokbel had no idea Gobbo had been trying to track him down for Victoria Police while he was on the run.

Gobbo gave him legal advice about his extradition over a series of phone calls and he apologised to her for leaving and not saying goodbye.

Tony Mokbel’s relationship with his former lawyer, Nicola Gobbo, was professional and persona.

Mokbel even asked her to fly to Greece to defend him.

She fed the information from Mokbel to her police handlers while Mokbel paid her $1800 for her legal services.

Gobbo continued to speak to Mokbel after he was extradited by police from Athens to Melbourne on a chartered private jet in 2008.

She fretted about what Mokbel might tell the authorities if he turned on her.

Records show Gobbo visited him in jail following his extradition, and visited a man, known as “Mr Cooper’’ – a Mokbel associate – whom she’s had convinced to give evidence against him in another wing of Barwon Prison.

What is clear about Gobbo is that her relationship with Mokbel was both professional and personal.

Mokbel met Gobbo as early as 1997-1998 when she was a junior lawyer for Melbourne solicitor Alex Lewenberg.

After Gobbo joined the bar (as a barrister) she touted for Mokbel’s business and he became her prize client in 2002 when she won him bail.

Mokbel then put her on retainer.

They had intimate dinners and at one stage were neighbours, living in buildings adjacent to one another in Port Melbourne.

Her role for him was also to stop underlings in his criminal empire ratting on him.

Mokbel’s case, as it heads into 2021, relies on several key points.

Firstly, Gobbo did not tell him that she was a police informer, informing on him, the client, since at least 2005 when Victoria Police recruited her as an informer.

She then urged his associates to “roll’’ on Mokbel and his brothers after setting them up for police.

A key prosecution witness against the Mokbels – “Mr Cooper’’ who made 40 statements to police – was paid in secret to give evidence against the crime family and associates.

Nicola Gobbo did not tell Tony Mokbel she was a police informer.

This fact is set to boost his appeal chances next year.

Mokbel, who was extradited to Victoria in 2008, was charged with multiple major drug trafficking offences on his return and, eventually, pleaded guilty to much of it.

During this period, Victoria Police discussed the implications of Gobbo’s informing on Mokbel.

They informed the Director of Public Prosecutions, John Champion, in June, 2012, about Gobbo’s informing but were scant in their detail.

Mokbel’s name, however, was raised as an issue.

But Mokbel was never told that his one-time lawyer and friend had been snitching on him.

Mokbel was always centre stage of the gangland era.

Now, as Gobbo exits stage left, Mokbel will become the headline act again.

As for Mr Walker, who was admitted to the New South Wales bar in 1979 and was appointed senior counsel, known as silk, in 1993, Mokbel is just another big case in a career full of them.

Among his clients have been big tobacco companies, outlaw bikies and politicians.

Aside from his distinguished career in the law, where he is regarded as the most formidable barrister in Australia, Mr Walker is an enthusiast of fine art, poetry and classic music, particularly Bach and Mozart.

Mokbel, in contrast, admires fast cars, fast women, Boney M and the Village People.

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