Tony Mokbel has Been Rushed to Hospital After A Prison Stabbing Attack

Gangland criminal Tony Mokbel is in a critical condition after being stabbed at Melbourne’s Barwon Prison yesterday. Emergency services were called to the maximum-security facility at about 3:45 PM following reports that there’d been an attack, with the 53-year-old Lebanese Australian suffering multiple stab wounds to the chest. He was found bleeding from the mouth, head, and upper-body and was airlifted to Royal Melbourne Hospital, reports The Age. He received surgery and now remains in a critical but stable condition.

"Nothing I've been told is leading me to believe it's life-threatening," Commissioner of Corrections Victoria Dr Emma Cassar told 3AW on Tuesday morning.

Mokbel was reportedly attacked by two other prisoners wielding "homemade weapons" as he walked back to the mainstream unit of the prison. "We had really good CCTV coverage of it,” said Dr Cassar. “He [Mokbel] was approached by two people, prisoners, who assaulted him, knocked him to the ground. You can see the footage clearly showing a number of stabbing actions."

Another inmate, 31, was also injured in the attack and taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Mokbel is serving time in Barwon for a number of criminal convictions, including commercial drug trafficking. He was sentenced to 30 years' prison in 2012, to serve a minimum of 22 years. But his conviction was recently brought into question when it was revealed that his former criminal barrister—known as Lawyer X—had acted as a paid police informant and leaked information about her own clients. Mokbel had reportedly expressed optimism that he’d be released as a result of the scandal involving his lawyer, according to NewsCorp, and it’s been suggested that this braggadocio may have been a factor in his attack.

"He was very confident he would get out of jail,” said Dr Cassar, “[and] I suspect it probably was [annoying other prisoners].”

The stabbing also occurred a day after NewsCorp published an article stating that Mokbel had become a powerful enforcer in Barwon Prison—emerging as “a feared voice inside Victoria’s highest security jail”—and had disrupted an extortion racket being run by Pacific Islander inmates. Dr Cassar confirmed to 3AW that the attackers were of Islander appearance, but said it was “too early to tell” if the stabbing was part of a “power play” within the prison.

Follow Gavin on Twitter or Instagram

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.