Matthew Johnson, convicted of murdering Carl Williams, seeks Nicola Gobbo evidence in appeal bid

The killer of drug lord Carl Williams will cite gangland lawyer-turned informant Nicola Gobbo in a bid to overturn his murder conviction.

Evidence relating to Nicola Gobbo is being sought in Matthew Johnson’s murder appeal. Picture: Supplied

The killer of drug lord Carl Williams will cite gangland lawyer-turned informant Nicola Gobbo in a bid to overturn his murder conviction, becoming the latest in a string of underworld identities trying to use the supergrass’s ­double life as a springboard to freedom.

More than a decade into his minimum 32-year sentence, Matthew Johnson appeared via video­link from the high security Olearia unit at Barwon Prison in Lara, near Geelong, for a directions hearing before the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday.

Johnson is seeking an extension of time to appeal his murder sentence. Criminal appeals must be started within 28 days after a conviction or sentence in Victoria. He was sentenced in 2011.

The grounds of appeal were not outlined during the hearing but the court heard Johnson’s legal team was seeking a photo of Ms Gobbo and Corrections Victoria officials as well as a prison visitor register.

Johnson’s legal team, represented in court by Jason Gullaci, is also seeking sworn statements from Victoria Police officers but denied it was on a “fishing ­expedition”.

“There is a real basis, based on sworn evidence at the royal commission, for the claims for documents we’re seeking,” he said.

Ms Gobbo mentioned Johnson when she appeared before the royal commission into the management of police informants in 2020, saying one of her clients hired Johnson to kill his drug trafficking co-accused but the hit man went to the wrong address.

Matthew Johnson.

She said she believed she may have visited Johnson once in prison. “I’ve just got a memory it was Prahran police station that rang, but I wasn’t told that his name was Matthew Johnson,” she told the inquiry on February 11 2020.

“He said his name was something else.”

In 2010, Johnson was caught on CCTV approaching Williams in a common area at Barwon Prison before striking him eight times with the metal stem of an exercise bike. He then dragged the body of the baby-faced drug lord back to his cell, where it was found about 30 minutes later by prison guards.

Johnson argued at his trial that his explosion of brutality directed at Williams in 2010 was motivated by self-defence and he should be found not guilty.

His version of events was dismissed and he was jailed for life, with a 32-year minimum.

At his sentencing, judge Lex Lasry rejected Johnson’s self-­defence plea after he had told the court Williams – behind bars for murder and drug trafficking – was planning to kill him with a sock full of billiard balls.

Justice Lasry said Williams’s murder was the result of “some meaningless underworld prison code” and the motive for the hit was because the jailed kingpin was assisting police in an investigation into the 2004 murders of Terrence and Christine Hodson.

Boasting more than 150 convictions prior to the Williams hit, Johnson led a gang called Prisoners of War inside Barwon that targeted inmates who assisted authorities.

Johnson reportedly had copies of Williams’s statements and one theory that has emerged since the latter’s death is that the hit was ordered by mafia don Rocco Arico, currently behind bars for drug trafficking and extortion.

Arico has launched his own bid for freedom after it emerged his lawyer, Joseph Pino Acquaro, was an informal police informant.

Shot dead outside his restaurant, Gelobar, in Brunswick East in 2016, Acquaro spoke to detectives several times about some of his clients but was never formally registered by police.

Johnson also had some association with Acquaro.

Other gangland heavies to have launched appeals after Ms Gobbo was unmasked as Lawyer X include Pasquale Barbaro, Frank Madafferi and Saverio Zirilli, who claimed they were enticed into criminal conduct by their supergrass lawyer.

On Wednesday, Registrar Deirdre McCann gave Johnson until February 4 to put forward his submissions for an extension of time to appeal his conviction.