Tony Mokbel has hired the lawyer who advised accused war criminal Ratko Mladic - the so-called "Butcher of Bosnia" - to fight his extradition from Greece.
High-profile international lawyer Alexander Lykourezos will represent Mokbel, 42, at a final appeal hearing in the Supreme Court in Athens on Tuesday.
Mr Lykourezos said rumours his new client was ready to roll over and return to Australia were false. "We will exhaust all legal weapons. We have grounds to fight and we are going to fight," he said. Mr Lykourezos said he saw similarities between the media treatment of Mokbel in Australia and the coverage of accused Bosnian-Serb warlord Mladic. The lawyer is friend and one-time legal adviser to Mladic.
Both Mladic and Mokbel had been mistreated by the media, Mr Lykourezos said.
Mladic, one of Europe's most wanted men, has been indicted by a UN war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Mr Lykourezos has a history of accepting tough cases. He was part of an unsuccessful bid in 1999 to prosecute NATO for alleged war crimes over its bombing of Kosovo.
Mokbel was in good shape physically and emotionally, Mr Lykourezos said.
"He has good morale," he said.
Mokbel's legal team was still deciding whether to proceed with a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, he said.
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