John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld in Naked City, an exclusive newsletter for subscribers sent every Thursday. You’re reading an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.

The reason statues of Lady Justice are often presented blindfolded and carrying scales is to show the system treats everyone equally, and verdicts are delivered only after all the evidence is weighed.

There can be no greater example than that of drug trafficker Tony Mokbel, who, having been recaptured in 2007 in Greece, has been in custody ever since.

Rug lord: Tony Mokbel has been in custody since he was arrested in Athens in 2007 wearing a terrible wig (left).Credit: Reuters

No one, including Mokbel, doubts he ran one of Australia’s biggest drug syndicates, but there is a growing body of serious legal minds that believe the evidence compiled against him, and his convictions, should be thrown out. His notoriety should not be a consideration.

In 2012, Mokbel was sentenced to 30 years with a minimum 22 (reduced on appeal to 26 with a minimum of 20) after he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. The judge said he would have sentenced him to life if he had gone to trial to be found guilty by a jury.

A few years earlier, in 2006, Mokbel jumped bail, fled overseas and continued to control his syndicate from Greece. He left to escape justice, not because he had a hankering for a souvlaki with extra garlic sauce. He was on the lam, not on the lamb.

He pleaded guilty because he faced overwhelming evidence. We now know that some of that evidence (from three key informers) was tainted, as lawyer-turned police........

© The Age