Notorious gangland figure Tony Mokbel will apply to be released from prison before his long-awaited Lawyer X appeal.
The 59-year-old, who is serving a 26-year prison term for drug trafficking, is due to face the Court of Appeal in Melbourne on Tuesday to apply for bail ahead of his full appeal against his sentence.
Mokbel was jailed in 2012 after striking a deal with prosecutors and pleading guilty to two counts of trafficking a drug of dependence, being MDMA and methamphetamine.
He is now appealing all of his convictions as he was represented by ‘Lawyer X’ Nicola Gobbo, whom he did not know was informing Victoria Police at the time.
Ms Gobbo, a registered police informer from 2005 to 2009, was acting as Mokbel’s lawyer for four years before he fled to Greece in 2006 and continued to advise him when he was extradited back to in 2008.
He did not find out about her status as an informer until the High Court lifted gag orders in 2018.
An appeal hearing is expected to begin later this year, after NSW judge Elizabeth Fullerton issued a damning ruling against Victoria Police over its use of Ms Gobbo as an informer.
She found police had perverted the course of justice in a ‘joint criminal enterprise’ with Ms Gobbo and was critical of police’s failure to obtain legal advice before she was registered as an informer.