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Zarah Garde-Wilson (born c. 1978) is an Australian criminal defence lawyer known for her involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings and the Lawyer X scandal. She has represented notorious Australian criminals such as Carl Williams, Roberta Williams, Tony Mokbel, Fadi Haddara, and Rob Karam. Garde-Wilson is noted for her outspoken views on corruption within the Australian criminal justice system and the subsequent erosion of defendants' rights. She is the principal partner at Garde Wilson Lawyers.

Personal life & education

Garde-Wilson was born in 1978, the second of two children of Gregory John Garde-Wilson and Judith Kemp. She received secondary education at Fairholme College, in Toowoomba, Queensland. She commenced studies in law at James Cook University and at 20, Garde-Wilson moved to Perth, Western Australia, to complete her studies at the University of Western Australia, where she resided at St George’s College and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1998.

Garde-Wilson was romantically involved with Lewis Caine, a notable figure in Melbourne's underworld, who was murdered on May 8, 2004. Caine, also known by the aliases Sean Vincent and Adrian Bligh, had extensive connections within the Melbourne criminal milieu, which were often highlighted in media reports about his life and death.

Zarah Garde-Wilson is a mother to three children. She gave birth to her daughter Samantha in late 2008, and twins Max and Sophie in September 2010.

In 2024, Garde-Wilson was listed among "The 8 best criminal lawyers in Melbourne" by The Canberra Times.

Career

Garde-Wilson took up an article clerkship at the law firm Pryles & Defteros, working on criminal defence. After being admitted as a solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2002, Garde-Wilson began practising law independently in 2004.

Melbourne gangland killings

Garde-Wilson became a significant figure during the Melbourne gangland killings through her representation of individuals linked to these events. She acted for several persons investigated by the Victoria Police from 1998 to 2006 and came into the public eye during the high-profile trials of Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel. During this time, Garde-Wilson became aware that fellow barrister, Nicola Gobbo, had been recruited by Victoria Police as an informant against her own clients.

Garde-Wilson was the girlfriend of convicted murderer Lewis Caine, who was murdered in the gangland killings.

In 2005, Garde-Wilson was found guilty of Contempt of court after refusing to testify in the trial of the two men charged with the murder of her boyfriend Lewis Caine, claiming that she feared for her life.

Involvement in Lawyer X scandal

Garde-Wilson's role in uncovering the Lawyer X scandal originated from her first-hand experiences during the Melbourne gangland wars. As a criminal defence lawyer, she represented several high-profile clients who were unknowingly compromised by their own attorney, Nicola Gobbo, who was secretly acting as a police informant under the codename "Informer 3838". Garde-Wilson's concerns about leaks within the legal system and her public questioning of the legal integrity of Victoria Police began to intensify during the late 2000s. However, her calls for broader public and legal scrutiny that eventually exposed Nicola Gobbo's role as "Informer 3838" escalated significantly around 2018 when the media first publicly disclosed Gobbo's role as an informant.

Following the revelations surrounding Nicola Gobbo's dual role as a lawyer and a police informant, the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants was established. Garde-Wilson provided testimony during this inquiry, which scrutinized the conduct of Victoria Police and the implications of using a legal professional as an informant. In response to the Commission's findings and the subsequent impact on public trust in the justice system, Garde-Wilson, along with other prominent Australian lawyers, called for significant reforms. In July 2023, following the closure of the Lawyer X Office of the Special Investigator, these legal practitioners, including Garde-Wilson, demanded an official apology from former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, emphasizing the need for reforms to restore integrity within the judicial system.

Notable cases

In 2005, she represented Carl Williams, a key figure in the Melbourne gangland killings, who was convicted of multiple murders. Another significant case involved defending Tony Mokbel, a notorious drug lord who was eventually convicted of large-scale drug trafficking.

In 2016, Garde-Wilson filed an appeal for the first Lawyer X case concerning convicted trafficker Rob Karam, who was involved in Australia's largest MDMA importation known as the "Tomato Tins" case. Convicted in 2012, Karam was implicated in smuggling 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy pills, valued at $122 million, hidden in tomato tins – a scheme purportedly orchestrated by the Calabrian Mafia. This case drew significant media attention due to the scale of the drug importation and the controversial involvement of Nicola Gobbo, who provided information to police about her clients, including Karam.

In 2019, Athar Almatrah was represented by Garde-Wilson in a case involving an alleged setup using a fake Instagram account to ambush Rocco Curra, a member of the Mongols motorcycle gang. During the proceedings, Garde-Wilson disputed the evidence against Almatrah, challenging the claims about her client's intent and the credibility of the testimony from co-accused individuals.

In 2022, Garde-Wilson represented Osman El-Houli in the Supreme Court of Queensland, where he was acquitted of charges related to an alleged 400kg cocaine smuggling plot. El-Houli was accused of driving from Melbourne to Queensland to collect the cocaine, but the jury found him not guilty after deliberating for four hours and he was acquitted of all charges.

In 2022, Garde-Wilson acted as the defence attorney for Tony Larussa before the Court of Appeal in Western Australia. Tony Larussa, initially sentenced over involvement in a methamphetamine operation, successfully appealed the conviction and was acquitted of all charges.

In 2024, Garde-Wilson represented reputed Melbourne underworld boss Fadi Haddara who faced legal proceedings regarding firearms charges. The charges included possession of unregistered firearms and handling a stolen Glock handgun.

Civil litigation

In 2020, Garde-Wilson initiated legal action against Google, aiming to unmask an anonymous online reviewer she suspected was a rival trying to damage her reputation. In the case, Justice Bernard Murphy had ordered Google, which didn’t object to the application, to provide the registration information of the account along with IP addresses of the reviewer, however it wasn’t enough to identify who was behind the posts. Garde-Wilson tried to get more information including phone numbers and email addresses used to recover account details when they were lost or verify the account when it was created. Google claimed that due to the length of time since the account was deleted, any relevant data associated with the reviewer had been “permanently deleted”. Ms Garde-Wilson said in a statement to The Age newspaper that she would issue proceedings against Google for destroying the account data and failing to save the reviewer's information in a 'timely way'.

In June 2021, Garde-Wilson initiated a defamation lawsuit against Avi Yemini, a far-right provocateur associated with the Canadian-based far-right website Rebel News. The case was filed in the Federal Court of Australia under the title "ZARAH GARDE-WILSON v AVI YEMINI & ANOR". The proceedings concluded with a settlement in October 2021, although the specific terms of the settlement were not made public.

In popular culture

Zarah Garde-Wilson's presence in popular culture is notably marked by her portrayals in two significant Australian television series. In 2008, she was portrayed by Kestie Morassi in the series Underbelly. Later, in 2014, Zoe Cramond played her in Fat Tony & Co. These portrayals contributed to her recognition beyond the legal sphere, highlighting her connections to high-profile criminal cases and bringing her career to the attention of a broader audience.

References

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46. Avi Yemini far-right:
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47. Rebel News:
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    • Perry, Barbara; Mirrlees, Tanner; Scrivens, Ryan (27 February 2019). "The Dangers of Porous Borders". Journal of Hate Studies. 14 (1). Gonzaga University: 61. doi:10.33972/jhs.124. Archived from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020. Far-right Canadian media outlets, for instance, have bombarded its subscribers with all kinds of pro-Trump, racist and xenophobic dialogue, both before and after Trump's victory. Rebel Media, a popular far-right online media platform run by Ezra Levant, a controversial Canadian far-right political activist, writer and broadcaster, has been an outright supporter of Trump, publishing countless extreme-right leaning articles on why to support him.
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    • Gilligan, Andrew (5 August 2018). "Tommy Robinson winds up bigots and the cash floods in". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 3 February 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2022. All four, including Robinson himself, were employees of The Rebel Media, a Toronto-based far-right website.
    • Scott, Mark (16 May 2017). "U.S. Far-Right Activists Promote Hacking Attack Against Macron". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017. Jack Posobiec, a journalist with the far-right news outlet The Rebel, was the first to use the hashtag with a link to the hacked documents online, which was then shared more widely by WikiLeaks.
    • Craig, Sean (19 August 2017). "A fight over a four-bedroom house: The Rebel Media meltdown and the full recording at the centre of the controversy". Global News. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2017. With politicians including Conservative heavyweights Andrew Scheer and Brian Jean swearing off appearances and a raft of exits by prominent contributors, Ezra Levant's far-right video and commentary network The Rebel spent the last week in damage control, trying to distance itself from the extremist alt-right movement whose values many have alleged the site's content too often sympathized with.
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• 1978 births
• Living people
• Australian solicitors
• Melbourne gangland killings
• Lawyers from Melbourne