Huge update on Tony Mokbel's jailhouse wingman - who cradled the drug kingpin in his arms following his brutal prison bashing
Kevin Farrugia, 53, held Mokbel's head in his hands until paramedics arrived after the former drug kingpin was bashed within an inch of his life at Barwon Prison in 2019.
Farrugia, who a tribunal heard was an 'associate' of Mokbel, has a lengthy criminal history littered violent offences dating back to 1993.
The convicted drug dealer was most recently serving a jail term after he was found guilty in March 2023 of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
Farrugia was handed a three-year and three-month jail term with a minimum of two years and was reportedly released from prison this week.
It's been reported authorities sensationally walked him straight to an immigration detention centre where he will sit until he is be deported to Malta.
He lived on the small Mediterranean island until he was 17-months-old, before his family relocated to Australia in the 1970s.
The bombshell follows Farrugia, who has done various jail terms including a stint for kidnapping in 2003, having had his visa cancelled in July 2023.
The Department of Home Affairs, which failed to confirm or deny claims that Farrugia would be deported, denied his appeal to regain his visa in March last year.
However, he successfully appealed that decision in June last year so his current status would likely be a shock to Melbourne's underworld.
A source contacted by Daily Mail Australia, who knows Farrugia, was not aware the Mokbel associate had even been released from prison.
The decision to overturned his cancelled visa last year was also a shock considering the tribunal heard the career criminal had 40 convictions for various gun and reckless conduct offences.
The tribunal also heard Farrugia bashed a prison guard after his partner, mother and infant daughter were strip searched during a 'non-contact' jail visit in 2008.
Farrugia was also caught with a homemade weapon and bashed a fellow inmate during his various jail stints.
The violent criminal told the tribunal cradling his close mate Mokbel after the savage prison bashing left him with 'trauma'.
'The Applicant's convictions, his conduct in prison and his re-offending after receiving formal warnings about his visa status are collectively very serious,' senior member Ann O'Connell noted during last year's hearing.
In response, Farrugia told the tribunal he had strong family-ties to Australia, was off drugs for good and his violent ways were behind him.
'I feel like I am no longer a ticking timebomb. I have my emotions in check and under control,' Farrugia said.
Farrugia, who spent almost combined 15 years behind bars, was jailed in 2008 for trafficking a commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine - a precursor for street drug 'speed'.
Speed was a lucrative money spinner for those who controlled Melbourne's illicit drug trade through the 90s and 2000s and throughout the Gangland War which Farrugia and Mokbel survived.
Mokbel then fled to Greece but was arrested and deported back to Australia where he was jailed.
While in the yard of Victoria's Barwon Prison in February 2019, he was ambushed by two inmates and stabbed in the upper-body.
Mokbel had earlier been offered to move into protection, after a report he was embroiled in a feud with Islanders, but refused.
He was king-hit and stabbed seven times by the men with cutlery and sharpened wires before he was kicked in the head, knocking out his teeth.
The ageing gangster was unable to move from the moment he was attacked and failed to defend himself as the pair assaulted him.
As the assault attracted attention from other inmates and prison guards, the attackers could be heard screaming: 'You're not an enforcer, this is what you get for talking to the screws you f**king dog.'
Bleeding from his mouth and chest, Mokbel was airlifted to Royal Melbourne Hospital in a serious but stable condition after Farrugia cradled his close friend.
Mokbel was so severely injured with bleeding on the brain he underwent emergency surgery and was placed in a coma but he survived the attack.
The former gangster's fortunes changed after he was bailed and set free from jail on April 4 this year.
The 59-year old could not contain his joy as he walked down the steps of the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal.
Mokbel said nothing as he walked through a police cordon shielding him from a horde of journalists and other onlookers.
The appeal court released him on bail citing there was a strong chance his remaining convictions would be quashed after they were compromised by the Lawyer X scandal.
Back in 2006, Mokbel notoriously bought a yacht named 'Edwena' and hired a Greek crew to spirit him away from Australia while on bail but the following year he was caught.
He spent nearly two decades behind bars but was released after the Court of Appeal agreed he had been set up by disgraced former lawyer and police informer Nicola Gobbo.
In setting Mokbel free on bail, Justices Karin Emerton, Robert Osborn and Jane Dixon agreed he stood a solid chance of winning his appeal against three convictions for drug trafficking, which is expected to be heard later this year.
If he wins, it will likely result in his complete release.
His current sentence expires in 2037, but he is eligible for parole in June 2031.
Prosecutors had argued Mokbel could not be trusted to comply with his bail conditions given his infamous escape to Greece just before Christmas 2006.
Known more widely as 'Lawyer X', Gobbo had been Mokbel's lawyer while informing against him in the early 2000s when he was a kingpin of Melbourne's deadly Underbelly War.
It was a 12-year war that began in January 1998 and ended in August 2010 with 36 underworld figures dead.
Mokbel had been facing the drug charges he is appealing now when he was tipped off by Ms Gobbo that he was about to be charged over the murder of Michael Marshall.
Marshall had been shot in the head outside the South Yarra home he shared with his wife and five-year-old son in 2003.
Police had believed the now-dead crime boss Carl Williams was contracted by Mokbel to kill Marshall, who he mistakenly believed had murdered his great friend, another gangland figure Willy Thompson.
The charges were ultimately withdrawn in 2009.
Mokbel had been jailed in 2012 over Victoria Police drug operations code-named Quills, Magnum, Plutonium and Orbital.
Magnum, which earnt Mokbel 20 years, had seen him convicted for trafficking more than 41kg of methylamphetamine while he was already on the run.
Orbital - a six year stint - saw him attempt to buy drugs off undercover cops while Quills (13 years) saw him busted for peddling MDMA.
As it stands, Mokbel has already served most of the jail time on Quills and Magnum, with the remainder attributed largely to Orbital.
Gobbo had first met Mokbel in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court in 1998 when she was acting as a junior for barrister Alex Lewenberg.
Mokbel claimed she had been acting on behalf of his brother.
In 2002, Mokbel said Gobbo visited him in jail while he was on remand for drug charges.
Mokbel claimed Gobbo gave him the hard sell, assuring him she would work hard for him.
A Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants later found Gobbo had been hellbent on taking down Mokbel's criminal empire and provided police with a 'volume of information'.
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