Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel granted bail
One of Australia’s most notorious gangland figures will walk free after almost two decades in prison.
Tony Mokbel, 59, arrived at court in Melbourne on Friday morning from prison in an armoured BearCat vehicle.
Dozens of police surrounded the gates as he was whisked into court to learn his fate.
Mokbel smiled, patted his lawyer on the shoulder and briefly spoke to his legal team ahead of the decision being handed down.
Shortly after, three Court of Appeal justices ruled that he should be freed.
It followed Mokbel’s application for bail earlier this week as he fights to overturn his remaining drug trafficking convictions on a long-awaited Lawyer X appeal.
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“As he was required to, Mr Mokbel has established his circumstances are truly exceptional,” court president Justice Karin Emerton said.
She then went a step further in saying “he has a very strong case that his convictions should be quashed”.
Mokbel has not tasted freedom since his 2007 arrest in Greece, after he famously absconded inside a yacht while on bail with a $1 million surety from his sister-in-law Renate.
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This time, his sister Gawy Saad has offered $850,000 in surety to secure Mokbel’s bail. Asked about Mokbel’s dash for Greece 18 years ago, she said she was “sure he won’t do it to anyone else”.
Mokbel has agreed to abide by what his lawyer said are “stringent” bail conditions, including GPS monitoring, a curfew, daily police reporting and that he cannot leave Victoria.
He will live at Saad’s four-bedroom home at Viewbank, in Melbourne’s north-east. She has given an undertaking to the court to report him to police if he flouts any bail conditions.
Mokbel’s barrister Julie Condon KC earlier cited delays in hearing his appeal, the strength of his case, his poor physical health, strong ties to jurisdiction due to his family and “long-term de facto” relationship, as exceptional circumstances to prove he should be released on bail.
Mokbel continues to fight to overturn drug-trafficking convictions, after he pleaded guilty to heading a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking empire known as “The Company”.
Mokbel was represented at the time by barrister-turned-supergrass Nicola Gobbo. He was unaware she was an informant for Victoria Police.
Until this week’s court hearings, he had been eligible for parole in June 2031. His appeal on his drug-trafficking convictions will be heard later this year.
