An Australian man jailed 12 years ago for a gangland murder was released yesterday after a court quashed his conviction, raising fears that some of the nation’s most dangerous criminals could also walk free over a scandal in which their lawyer had secretly been a police informant.
Faruk Orman was the first in a potential flood of convicts to benefit from revelations that a prominent criminal lawyer, Nicola Gobbo, was feeding information to police while supposedly defending them.
Orman in 2007 was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of driving the getaway car for the 2002 killing of mobster Victor Peirce, one of a spate of about 40 murders during a gangland war in Melbourne.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The case against him unraveled after it was revealed that Gobbo was not only a police informant, but also the attorney representing the key witness who testified against him.
The Victoria State Court of Appeal ruled that Gobbo’s actions amounted to “a substantial miscarriage of justice” and, on the recommendation of prosecutors, quashed Orman’s murder conviction.
“On the facts conceded, Ms Gobbo’s conduct subverted Mr Orman’s right to a fair trial and went to the very foundation of the system of criminal trial,” the court said.
Orman, who always proclaimed his innocence of any role in the Peirce killing, said he was not leaving prison “bitter and angry.”
“I have been so lucky, throughout this experience, to have people who believed in me and fought for me,” he said in a statement.
The ruling is expected to be only the first of many as Gobbo represented a large number of defendants, including some of Australia’s most dangerous criminals, on charges ranging from drug trafficking to murder.
Her most prominent former client, top crime boss Tony Mokbel, who is serving a 30-year sentence for drug trafficking, has also sought leave to appeal his conviction.
Prosecutors last year informed 22 people that they could have grounds to appeal.
Gobbo claims that at least 386 people were arrested and charged based on the information she provided, according to a June 2015 letter that was made public in December last year.
A Royal Commission of inquiry is under way to determine how many cases have been affected by Gobbo’s double life during a period of intense gang bloodletting in Australia’s second-biggest city.
Gobbo was a key police source during the critical years of gangland prosecutions from 2005 to 2009, but was also registered as an informant as far back as 1995, two years before she was admitted to practice law.
She was recruited as a police informer after being charged with drug offenses in 1993. She received a good behavior bond and no conviction was recorded, a police informant registration document showed.
Victorian police spent five years fighting in the courts to keep Gobbo’s identity a secret, maintaining that she could be murdered if it came to light.
In March, the Australian High Court lifted the suppression order that had protected her anonymity, accusing her of “fundamental and appalling breaches” of her obligations as a lawyer, and accusing the Victoria Police of “reprehensible conduct” for their role in the saga.
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