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‘Bemused’: Judicial registrar’s quip in Machine Gun Charlie’s ‘Lawyer X’ case

A kickboxing champion who is behind bars for trafficking heroin is back in court claiming he was jailed on fabricated evidence.

What happens when you are charged with a crime?

A champion kickboxer and convicted drug trafficker known as Machine Gun Charlie is back in court over the infamous Lawyer X scandal.

Dragan Arnautovic has spent stints behind bars since the 1990s for drug trafficking offences.

His latest sentence was handed down in May 2018 when he was jailed for a non-parole ­period of eight years after he was found guilty by a County Court jury of trafficking a commercial quantity of heroin and methylamphetamine in November and December 2016.

While he served three other jail sentences between 1999 and 2012, it’s his 1999 conviction that Arnautovic claims in ­submissions is a “miscarriage of justice”.

His matter was on Thursday heard before judicial registrar Deirdre McCann in Victoria’s Court of Appeal, where he is seeking leave to appeal a conviction from 1999.

Arnautovic was convicted of trafficking a commercial quantity of heroin in Victoria’s County Court that year but he now claims he was jailed on ­“fabricated evidence” and “police corruption” at the hands of Nicola Gobbo, known as Lawyer X, a submission he made to the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants states.

His lawyers have until January 27 to file a written statement and the respondents until February 10, the court was told.

Ms McCann commented on why it had taken so long for the parties to file required ­documents.

“I’m a bit bemused by that,” she told the court.

“It’s obviously quite an old case.”

The royal commission investigated the use of Ms Gobbo as an informer by Victoria Police.

A submission from Arnautovic, which was published on the RCMPI website, claimed that Lawyer X conspired with several high profile lawyers, police ­officers and other people of authority to “pervert the course of justice for financial gain … at the same time using me as a scapegoat to justify the expensive police operation and to enhance their personal profile with police,” Arnautovic wrote.

Ms Gobbo was an informer for police between 2005 and 2009 while acting as a legal ­adviser for some of Australia’s most infamous criminals, including Arnautovic, in Victoria.

In the submission, Arnautovic claimed the drug charges laid against him after his arrest in 1997 were “grossly magnified”.

Arnautovic was jailed for a maximum of 12 years in 1999 after being convicted of trafficking heroin worth $1m, but was released three years early on parole.

The matter will return to court at a later date.

NCA NEWSWIRE

Read related topics:Lawyer X

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/bemused-judicial-registrars-quip-in-machine-gun-charlies-lawyer-x-case/news-story/c05144315df1bfa95688fdce98117db7