The police officer who headed the Purana task force has apologized to the Victorian Supreme Court and Victoria for not swearing affidavits under oath at Tony Mobkel’s change of plea hearing on Monday.
Retired detective-inspector Jim O’Brien told the court that it was “accepted practice” to not swear in affidavits and said that some officers simply signed them instead.
Detective Senior Sergeant Dale Flynn told the Victorian Supreme Court on Tuesday that it was common practice to sign in affidavits, and believed when he was signing in affidavits for the Mokbel case that he was following correct procedure.
Mokbel has recently changed his plea from guilty to not guilty for trafficking a large amount of methyl amphetamine, after another case ruled the unsworn affidavits as inadmissible.
Mokbel’s lawyers are trying to prove that the affidavits in Mokbel’s case were incorrectly obtained, rendering the search warrants gained invalid.
Affidavits are used to gain search warrants, surveillance approval and other investigative tools.
Mokbel is said to be the mastermind behind the Melbourne amphetamine trade as part of the gangland war alongside Carl Williams. Mokbel disappeared from Melbourne when he was on trial in 2006 and fled to Greece where he was arrested by Athens police in June 2007. He was extradited to Australia in 2008, and has been imprisoned since, awaiting trial.
The lady who assisted in Mokbel’s flee to Greece received a minimum two year and three month sentence by the Victorian Supreme Court earlier this month. 60-year-old Foula Pantazis, who is married to one of Mokbel’s close associates, was involved in the group who organised the yacht that he used to flee Australia, and also allowed him to use her Greek bank account to fund his life on the run. She was said to have arranged the lease on the apartment in Greece which became his home and organised for her sister to deliver money and clothes to an associate in Athens for him. She was with him the day he was arrested in Athens.
