Australian lawmaker gave reference to drug baron

CANBERRA, Mar 9 (Reuters) A senior member of Australia's opposition Labor Party quit his job today after saying he once gave a reference to the country's most wanted fugitive, a drug baron linked to a series of gang murders.

Tony Mokbel, who fled overseas a year ago, has been sentenced in his absence to at least nine years in jail on drug charges. He is also charged with the murder of drug kingpin Lewis Moran, shot dead in a Melbourne bar in 2004.

''Over the past eight years he has been a responsible caring husband and father,'' Labor's Kelvin Thomson wrote in his reference in 2000, adding that Mokbel was making ''a significant contribution to the community''.

Thomson, who was in line to become Attorney-General if Labor wins a general election later this year, said he had known nothing of Mokbel's criminal links when he wrote the personal reference to support an application for a liquor licence.

''I urge you to take into account Mr Mokbel's last years of unblemished conduct, his commitment to family and his successful establishment as a local businessman in making your decision concerning his application,'' he wrote.

Thomson's reference and his resignation from the shadow ministry are a blow to resurgent Labor, which has opened up a strong lead in the polls over John Howard's conservative government. The election is due in the second half of 2007.

Mokbel is charged with ordering the gangland murder of Lewis Moran in March 2004 -- one of 28 deaths linked to a bloody drugs turf war in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, in the four years from 2000.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd said Thomson's letter had been inappropriate for someone campaigning to become Australia's chief law officer, as Mokbel already had a number of convictions by the year 2000, including for assault and firearms offences.

''It is unacceptable for a person to be shadow Attorney-General and the first law officer of the Commonwealth (of Australia) to have provided a letter of support of this nature,'' Rudd said in a statement.

REUTERS SY DS1105