If the past is another country then someone should tell Fat Tony Mokbel that the charges he was accused of today in the Melbourne Magistrates Court didn’t happen to someone else.
A tanned sombre black-suited Fat Tony was teleported from his spaceship in Barwon prison to the high-tech control room that is Court 13 on the fourth floor where he was quick smart remanded in custody until June 24.
Defence lawyer Mirko Bagaric basically argued that The Man Who Wasn’t There on the screen really shouldn’t be here because he had been nicked illegally from his Greek domicile at the weekend.
Bagaric, who is as seriously wacky as his client, said Mokbel should still be in Greece waiting patiently for his pending appeal in the European Court of Human Rights.
“By extraditing my client back while that appeal is still proceeding, the executive of this country has wantonly destroyed my client’s right to an appeal,” he said.
Mr Bagaric said under those circumstances Mr Mokbel’s extradition constituted an illegal act.
“It is my submission that my client is being held unlawfully in the circumstances he was brought back to Australia.”
So there you have it in nutshell. He’s not here. He’s not supposed to be here. He shouldn’t be here. He has never been here. He should be there. There, presumably, is Strasbourg in France, where the European Court of Human Rights lives. But perhaps Neverland is a more fitting location for the Man Who Wasn’t There.
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