Tony Mokbel was a major drug trafficker. But was it a fair cop?

Six prime ministers and 4235 days ago, Tony Mokbel stood in the dock of the Supreme Court to be sentenced after pleading guilty to drug trafficking in the face of overwhelming evidence.

On Tuesday, at his Supreme Court appeal, Mokbel was offered the opportunity to sit in the witness box while giving evidence in what was always going to be a long day. That’s progress.

Tony Mokbel in a prison van after his day in court on Tuesday.Credit: Jason South

In 2012, he wore his favourite dark suit, white shirt and red tie. In the court were Victoria Police’s Purana taskforce who had arrested him. They wore the identical dark suit, white shirt and red ties.

In 2024, Mokbel wore a white shirt, possibly the same dark pinstripe suit and navy blue striped tie. A suit upgrade is not a priority in a maximum security prison. There were no Purana detectives there. Most have retired, swapping their quiet detective clobber for loud golf shirts.

He was no longer “Prisoner” or “The Accused” but was back to being called Mr Mokbel. He referred to judges with their full titles, often correcting himself if he made a slip.

Mokbel, as always, was exceedingly pleasant and polite. He took a seat swinging slightly side to side as Justice Elizabeth Fullerton, firm but respectful, explained he needed to answer the questions rather than make statements.

A court sketch of Tony Mokbel, who appeared in court for his appeal trial on Tuesday.Credit: Nine News

He was given a list of names that he shouldn’t use because of suppression orders. He smiled and told the court one was missing. Tony always had an eye for detail.

Mokbel asked politely if he could stand to provide evidence. Old habits. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, looking at his questioner or the judge, answering without hesitation.

We had been led to believe that a savage prison bashing that put him in a coma for more than three weeks had left him with long-term memory problems. Yet Mokbel gave impressive evidence, stuck to the point and often answered concisely with “correct” or “that’s right”.

Legal jargon and criminal slang intertwined. There were discussions about burner phones in prison, crooks rolling over and when he first heard Gobbo was a “dog” – a police informer. A court is a broad church.

He was told his evidence would be taken in 30-minute lots to avoid fatigue. At the first break he looked as if he was just hitting his stride. Clearly he was enjoying himself.

Mokbel could recall the name of detectives, details of the multiple investigations against him, including each investigation’s codename and the lawyers he had employed with special reference to disgraced barrister Nicola Gobbo.

Which is why Mokbel was in the witness box. The law in this case is extremely complex, but the key issue is simple. Did Gobbo, acting as a police snitch, betray Mokbel to the point he suffered a miscarriage of justice?

Just to make it clear here, no one (least of all Tony) is trying to suggest he wasn’t a major drug trafficker but rather that some of the evidence that showed he was a major drug trafficker had been unfairly gathered.

Fullerton will have to find the tipping point. Was Gobbo’s betrayal that point or was the remaining legitimate evidence overwhelming?

Mokbel’s team argue he was set up by Gobbo and didn’t stand a chance. The other team will say his argument is just a version of “the dog ate my homework”.

In 2006, while facing federal cocaine charges, Mokbel appeared relaxed – even cocky – to the point some feared he had managed to compromise the jury. But with the trial close to completion Mokbel, seemingly overnight, appeared beaten, but it was not the trial that had him rattled.

He told Tuesday’s appeal hearing that Gobbo had tipped him off he was about to face multiple gangland murder charges saying he was facing life in prison. (He was later charged with two counts. One was withdrawn, and he was acquitted of the second.)

The federal prosecutor in the cocaine trial recommended bail be withdrawn as the cocaine trial was coming to a conclusion but no one told the judge of the pending murder charges and so Tony was remanded on bail.

On March 20 in 2006 he left his three mobile phones, his girlfriend, his frozen assets, his city apartment and his public image profile and fled to Bonnie Doon, north-east of Melbourne.

Mokbel had been around the courts for decades and knew that going into hiding, buying a yacht and sailing to Greece to avoid jail was a little more serious than catching undersized flathead. Gobbo didn’t make him do it. Tony was always his own man.

For a man betrayed Mokbel was fairly zen about the lawyer who betrayed him, referring to her as “Ms Gobbo” and complimenting her on her work ethic as compared to “some others”, describing her as the engine room of his legal defence. “I thought she was the staunchest person on Earth.”

Barrister Nicola Gobbo with Tony Mokbel outside court in 2004.Credit: Nine

The appeal is likely to last nearly three months. Mokbel is asking for more legal aid to add another lawyer to his team.

In evidence Mokbel said when he was fighting multiple criminal charges he would always seek more than one legal opinion, so all options could be explored.

But in those days he saw his legal bill as a business expense. The impressive list of assets seized as proceeds of crime was read to the court.

Previously it has been revealed authorities seized more than 50 properties, two farms, 30 cars, the yacht he used to escape from Australia, a Caulfield horse stable, a country hotel, a Brunswick market, a Sydney Road car park, a Boronia pizza parlour, four jet-skis, a champion racehorse and a Ferrari. The package was valued at $54 million.

Not bad for a bloke who bought a pizza place in 1987 and was described in his police file as lacking “financial acumen”.

In court, he said he would catch up with Gobbo at night because during the day he was flat out checking his businesses that he had franchised to a series of managers. “I was the sole proprietor of all them companies.”

There will be plenty of twists and turns in the days and weeks ahead but Antonios Sajih Mokbel may take heart that the law constantly looks for precedent. And there was a Mokbel secretly held captive by Purana detectives for more than a year before release.

The taskforce had a pet yabby called Tony they kept in a small aquarium. After the capture of the real Tony, the freshwater crustacean was freed – some say in the Albert Park Lake.

It will be many months before Tony Mokbel knows whether, for him, the legal tide has finally turned.

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.