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CANBERRA - The gangland war that is believed to have killed as many as 27 Melbourne underworld figures has ended with the dramatic conviction of baby-faced crime boss Carl Williams on four counts of murder.
Williams, 36, escaped charges on two further gangland killings, drug trafficking and death threats against the girlfriend of one of the policemen leading the hunt against him in a deal that will still see him jailed for life.
His hatred of a rival crime syndicate, rooted in Melbourne's huge amphetamine trade, led him to organise the contract killings of an entire crime family - patriarch Lewis Moran, and his son and stepson Jason and Mark, gunned down by hitmen who later struck their own deals with police and gave evidence against Williams.
But even with Williams' conviction and a trail of bodies that has decimated the city's underworld, police have warned that organised crime and its accompanying violence will regroup and continue.
"I've never really liked the term [gangland] war," Victorian Police Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland, who led the Purana task force investigating the killings, told Channel Nine yesterday.
"The point is that this is entrenched organised crime we're dealing with. We know that it never goes away.
"It became pretty public down here. Obviously that's put a lot of pressure on us to be seen to deal with it and I think we're now doing that.
"But it's not going to go away - and neither are we."
The animosities that fuelled the killings also continue.
Judy Moran, mother of Jason and Mark and widow of Lewis, was yesterday furious at the deal that saw the charge of killing Mark dropped and called for the return of the death sentence for "mass murderer" Williams.
"I'd like to be the hangman and I'd like to pull the lever," she told Southern Cross radio.
Williams' soon-to-be-divorced wife Roberta fired back on the same station.
"Judy should get her facts right and help publish the truth instead of getting on air and in papers and magazines and whatever and telling public lies," she said.
Meanwhile, Williams is preparing for a life in prison after suddenly changing his plea to guilty on charges of murdering Jason and Lewis Moran, and a third drug dealer whose name has been suppressed.
Police also revealed that Williams had in 2005 been convicted of the murder of hotdog salesman and drug dealer Michael Marshall, a conviction kept secret to ensure the trial on the Moran killings was not compromised.
Only one major figure involved in the feud now remains alive and at large - Tony Mokbel, at present on the run from 12 years' jail for cocaine trafficking and a murder charge for the killing of Lewis Moran.
Mokbel is alleged to have paid A$150,000 ($168,342) to have Moran gunned down while drinking at a Brunswick club in March, 2004.
The war erupted over the amphetamine trade and the Morans' anger at Williams for undercutting the price of their product, a consignment of poor-quality drugs, and a dispute over the ownership of an A$400,000 pill-making machine.
In October 1999, Jason Moran went with his brother to a Melbourne park where he shot Williams in the stomach, leaving him alive so he could repay the debt they claimed he owed.
Williams refused to co-operate with police and vowed to take revenge on the entire Moran family.
Williams recruited his own army while in jail on charges involving drugs worth A$20 million.
The war began when he was released on bail in January 2000. The first of the Morans to die was Mark, gunned down by Williams outside his home in June that year. Jason Moran and his bodyguard Pasquale Barbaro were shot to death in a van as they collected their children from a football clinic, killed by a man known as The Runner, who later turned on Williams and made a deal with police.
Lewis Moran died in a hail of bullets as he drank at a club in Brunswick in March 2004.
Other high-profile victims included thugs Frank Bevenuto, Dino Dibra, Victor George Pierce, Paul Kallipolitis, and Nick "the Bulgarian" Radev, all killed by Williams' hitman Andrew "Benji" Veniamin. Veniamin was in turn shot by another Williams rival and Moran friend Mick Gatto, who was acquitted of the killing on the grounds of self-defence.
Other deaths ordered by Williams were suspected drug dealer Willy Thompson and Graham "the Munster" Kinniburg.
The Age newspaper reported that police believe Williams was connected to 10 underworld killings and would have kept killing if he had not finally been jailed.
The newspaper said he would never face charges over many of the murders he arranged after cutting a deal with police that gave him an eventual chance of release.
