This photo of drug baron Tony Mokbel leaving court with his criminal defence barrister Nicola Gobbo (later exposed as a police informant) was taken circa 2005.
The accused Melbourne drug dealer was charged in Melbourne Magistrates' Court with inciting the importation of the drug ecstasy.
As reported in news.com.au:
'Mokbel spent almost 19 years behind bars until appealing his convictions and sentence following revelations his longtime lawyer Nicola Gobbo was a police informant.'
According to ABC, on Friday:
Prosecutors have abandoned a drug trafficking case against underworld figure Tony Mokbel.The charges related to allegations Mokbel tried to source a commercial quantity of MDMA from overseas in June 2005.
Mokbel's legal team argued the gangland figure suffered a gross miscarriage of justice because his former lawyer Nicola Gobbo secretly passed information about him to Victoria Police.
**This photograph is part of an IA series that looks at Australia through the lens of award-winning photojournalist Bill McAuley.**
Bill McAuley's 40-plus-year news career began in 1969 as a cadet photographer at 'The Age' in Melbourne.
He has several published collections, including 'Portraits of the Soul: A lifetime of images with Bill McAuley' and 'Last light on Victoria Dock, 1999'. To see more from Bill, click here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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