The moment Victoria Police chiefs have feared for more than a decade is upon them.
On Tuesday, feared crime lord Tony Mokbel stood on the cusp of finally being released from jail on the back of the long running Lawyer X scandal.
He will learn his fate at 10am on Friday when the Supreme Court of Appeal hands down its decision.
Mokbel could not contain his joy as he entered in front of a packed courtroom.
The man once dubbed ‘Fat Tony’ was seen embracing loved ones from the prison dock within the centre of the courtroom.
Dressed in a black suit, Mokbel was surrounded by no less than five burly Security and Emergency Services Group guards, who sat beside and behind the notorious inmate.
He had arrived at the courthouse in the back of a high-security BearCat police vehicle, surrounded by more than a dozen security officers.
A large media pack remains positioned inside and outside the court, ready to pounce on Mokbel should he be granted bail on the spot.
Mokbel is appearing before Justices Karin Emerton, Robert Osborn and Jane Dixon, who will decide whether to release Mokbel back into the community while he prepares an appeal against his conviction on drug trafficking offences.
Crime lord Tony Mokbel enters the Supreme Court of Melbourne during a hearing in November
A court sketch of how Tony Mokbel appeared on Tuesday
His bail and appeal hinges on the actions of disgraced former criminal barrister Nicola Gobbo, who was acting for him while working as a double agent and informer for Victoria Police.
He has not tasted freedom for 6511 days when he was detained in Greece in 2007 after making a run for it.
Mokbel’s arrest became national news due largely to the comical shabby wig he was caught wearing when Victorian detectives finally pounced.
He was handed a 30-year prison sentence, with a non-parole of 22 years, in 2012 after pleading guilty to being the kingpin behind an elaborate drug syndicate.
But now Mokbel has applied to have his entire conviction quashed because of the Lawyer X scandal.
On Tuesday, the court heard he enjoyed support from his family and a mystery ‘long-term de facto partner’.
Mokbel had been in a relationship with glamorous Danielle McGuire while on the run.
She is the mother of his daughter, Renate, who was born in 2006.
Gawy Saad, sister of Tony Mokbel (centre) arrives to the Court of Appeal in Melbourne on Tuesday. She has put up $850 to secure his release
Renate Mokbel ended up in jail after Mokbel fled and left her carrying the can of his $1million surety
It remains unclear who Mokbel is now in a relationship with while caged behind bars since 2007.
The court heard Mokbel’s bail hinged on nine factors, including his poor health, the strength of his appeal case and his circumstances in custody.
The court heard Mokbel would submit to GPS monitoring via an ankle bracelet and provide a $850,000 surety as conditions of bail.
If released, he will live at a unit in Viewbank – north-east of Melbourne’s CBD – with his sister Gawy Saad.
Her sister-in-law Renate Mokbel made the same pledge in 2006, posting a $1million surety for her brother before he fled overseas.
That same year the Victorian Supreme Court ordered she pay the $1million or face two years in jail.
She was subsequently locked up when she failed to cough up the money.
Ms Gawy said she held no such fears her brother would do to her as he did to Renate.
Mokbel and disgraced lawyer Nicola Gobbo pictured together when the gangster was still free
Tony Mokbel in 2000 outside the very court where he hopes to walk free from on Tuesday
‘I assure you it won’t happen,’ she told the court.
‘He’s been punished for it and he’s done his time.’
The court heard Mokbel would live with her and her husband and adhere to a strict curfew between 11pm and 6am should he be released.
Ms Saad pledged to turn Mokbel in should he breach any of the bail conditions imposed upon him.
Little has been seen of Mokbel since he was jailed in 2012 on drug charges.
But he left the court on Tuesday as he had arrived – smiling and shaking hands with well-wishers like a celebrity.
Two of those well wishers were seen later leaving the court in a Lamborghini.
Mokbel has been imprisoned within the walls of Barwon Prison – a maximum security jail that houses some of Australia’s worst villains.
Mokbel is escorted by police officers after appearing in court, on June 8, 2007 in Athens, Greece. He had fled Australia after being tipped off he was about to be charged with murder
A grainy image of him was released publicly in 2019 after he was stabbed in a shocking jailhouse attack there.
That image showed the critically-injured Mokbel splayed flat out on the concrete floor as paramedics worked to save his life.
Mokbel’s barrister Julie Condon, KC, told the court her client had ‘exceptional circumstances’ for being released on bail, describing his case as ‘very rare’.
Its uniqueness hinges on a 489-page judgement by New South Wales judge Elizabeth Fullerton in December.
Justice Fullerton found Victoria Police’s use of Ms Gobbo was part of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’.
Ms Condon urged the Court of Appeal to use Justice Fullerton’s assessment of Ms Gobbo as an informant to help them make a decision on granting Mokbel bail.
‘The court is well placed to make that assessment,’ she said.
Ms Condon said Justice Fullerton’s findings combined with the strength of his case was at the ‘heart’ of Mokbel’s bail application.
Mokbel was guarded by elite prison guards on his escort from Barwon Prison to court on Tuesday similar to this image captured in November
Mokbel appeared otherwise healthy despite years behind bars and the savage 2019 attempt on his life that saw him repeatedly stabbed by jailhouse rivals with a makeshift ‘shank’ knife.
During a hearing last year, it was revealed Mokbel continued to suffer a traumatic brain injury stemming from the stabbing and had been hospitalised for heart attacks.
Another hearing in February last year heard Mokbel claimed he fled Australia in 2006 after receiving advice from Gobbo that he was about to be hit with three murder charges.
Mokbel was already facing a lengthy jail sentence at the time after being charged with serious drug trafficking offences.
Victoria Police’s Purana taskforce – targeting Melbourne’s gangland war – had already contained his criminal empire by restricting his access to $15million in cash and assets.
The court heard police seized real estate across Victoria and Queensland, including multiple properties in Brunswick, Noosa and the Red Lion Hotel in Kilmore.
Cops also took Mokbel’s Ferrari roadster and froze cash he held in the NAB and ANZ banks.
This photo of Mokbel after he was stabbed in prison was released by a court in 2019. Little has been seen of him in public since
Mokbel was known for his snappy dressing during his years in the spotlight outside Melbourne courts in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Iconic images show him strutting along Lonsdale Street outside the Supreme Court dressed in a well-tailored suit and red tie.
Mokbel was known to be courteous to reporters outside court during his many appearances.
Gobbo was exposed as police informer superstar Lawyer X in March 2019.
She had acted for many of Melbourne’s crooks, including Mokbel and the now-deceased gangster Carl Williams.
Williams was bludgeoned to death in jail before he even got a chance to see his former lawyer implicated in the scandal.
Mokbel has already enjoyed several legal wins over Gobbo’s involvement in his affairs.
A 2006 conviction for cocaine importation was quashed in 2020 due to the Lawyer X scandal.
Tony Mokbel was a real life Tony Soprano back when the show first aired in 1999
In 2023, his 2012 sentence for drug trafficking was slashed from 30 years’ jail with a minimum term of 22 years to a total of 26 years with a non-parole period of 20 years.
Gobbo had first met Mokbel in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in 1998 when she was acting as a junior for barrister Alex Lewenberg.
Mokbel claimed she had been acting on behalf of his brother.
In 2002, Mokbel said Gobbo visited him in jail while he was on remand for drug charges.
She had been acting as barrister Con Heliotis’ junior and asked if she could come onboard.
‘I honestly didn’t realise she was a barrister. I thought she was just a clerk at Lewenberg’s office,’ he said.
Mokbel claimed Gobbo gave him the hard sell, assuring him she would work hard for him.
‘She was an extremely hard working barrister compared to others,’ Mokbel said.
Tony Mokbel and his infamous wig, which he was caught wearing during his arrest in Greece after fleeing Australia
‘She did all the administration stuff that a lawyer would do, which you don’t see from barristers. She was constantly telling me to ring her, she was constantly coming into see me.
‘She just put me on a pedestal … which was great for me because it was a big case.’
Mokbel claimed the pair would often discuss his legal matters on the outside over coffee and dinners.
The gangster claims he only fled in 2006 – mid-trial – because Gobbo warned him police were looking to charge him with murder.
‘She told me that I’m going to be charged with three murders and I should seriously think about absconding,’ he told the court.
Police later charged him with the murders of Lewis Moran and Michael Marshall at the height of Melbourne’s underworld war.
Mokbel said he trusted Gobbo fully, describing her as ‘the engine’ to his legal defences.
On Tuesday, his barrister said Mokbel would never have pleaded guilty to the charges he was jailed for had cops and prosecutors disclosed Gobbo had been turning his mates against him in secret.
It was an argument that appeared to carry significant weight with the judges, whom suggested Mokbel might well have been eligible for parole now had he not pleaded up to at least two of the three convictions under scrutiny.
Mokbel is currently eligible for parole in June 2031.
