Mark Tedeschi

Mark Tedeschi, (born 1952) is an Australian barrister, law professor, photographer and author.

He is in private practice at Wardell Chambers in Sydney.

He was formerly the Senior Crown prosecutor for New South Wales and the Head of Chambers of the 100 or so Crown prosecutors.

He was the founder and president of the Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors and is a visiting professor at the University of Wollongong.

Tedeschi earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1974 and was then admitted as a solicitor in New South Wales.

He later received a Master of Arts in Business Law, specialising in International Banking, Trade and Taxation Law from the London Metropolitan University (then the City of London Polytechnic), where he also served as a part-time Lecturer in Law.

Dubbed the Balibo Five, all were killed on 16 October 1975 during the Indonesian incursions prior to the main invasion of East Timor.

The deaths were found to have been deliberate at the Inquest by an Australian coroner, who ruled that they were killed by Indonesian special forces soldiers.

Tedeschi became a barrister in 1977.

He was a defence barrister during the (so called) "Greek Conspiracy Case" in 1979–81 in which over 100 people, the majority of whom were of Greek origin, were arrested and charged with defrauding Social Security.

He was appointed a Crown Prosecutor in 1983, a Queen's Counsel in 1988, a Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor in 1990, and the Senior Crown Prosecutor in 1997.

The case sparked a documentary entitled Witch Hunt that premiered at the 1987 Sydney Film Festival.

As a prosecutor, Tedeschi was best known for the prosecution of numerous high-profile cases in Australia, including the backpacker murders committed by Ivan Milat in the 1990s.

He has won numerous awards for his photography and has been featured in galleries throughout the world, including in the State Library of New South Wales, the New South Wales Art Gallery, the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, and the National Library in Canberra.

Tedeschi prosecuted the backpacker murders committed by Ivan Milat in the 1990s,in which a total of seven bodies were discovered in the Belanglo State Forest in New South Wales.

Tedeschi successfully prosecuted Chew Seng Liew and Choon Tee Lim for the 1991 shooting death of prominent Australian heart surgeon Victor Chang.

On 4 July 1991, Chang was forced to pull his vehicle over by Liew and Lim and they attempted to rob him.

After pulling over, Chang refused to give Liew and Lim his money.

An argument ensued and Liew fired two shots, killing Chang.

A third suspect was granted immunity for testifying against Liew and Lim.

The original plan was to abduct Chang for ransom, however, the third suspect backed out of the plan the day before the shooting.

In 1991, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal made criticism of Tedeschi in acquitting Tim Anderson of charges related to the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing.

Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said, in a unanimous judgement: "The trial of the appellant miscarried principally because of an error which resulted in large part from the failure of the prosecuting authorities adequately to check aspects of the Jayewardene theory. This was compounded by what I regard as an inappropriate and unfair attempt by the Crown to persuade the jury to draw inferences of fact, and accept argumentative suggestions, that were not properly open on the evidence. I do not consider that in those circumstances the Crown should be given a further opportunity to patch up its case against the appellant. It has already made one attempt too many to do that, and I believe that, if that attempt had never been made, there is a strong likelihood that the appellant would have been acquitted."

Tim Anderson told ABC television that the Legal Aid Commission of NSW, acting for him, laid almost 50 complaints against Tedeschi to the NSW Bar Council.

"None of it came to anything."

Milat was later arrested and found guilty of all murders on 27 July 1996.

Milat later appealed the conviction, but it was upheld.

Tedeschi was the lead prosecutor in a trial arising out of the infamous 2000 Fijian coup d'état led by George Speight.

In 2001, he prosecuted family-murderer Sef Gonzales.

This was the first political assassination in modern Australia's history and the trial ended in two mistrials before Ngo was found guilty of the murder in 2001.

Ngo was a rival politician to Newman.

Other cases prosecuted by Tedeschi include:

In 2004, he prosecuted then vice-president Jope Seniloli for falsely swearing in of ministers.

He also won convictions against Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Rakuita Vakalalabure, as well as Ratu Viliame Volavola, PeceliRinakama, and Viliame Savu for the similar offences.

All were sentenced to various prison terms.

In 2007, Tedeschi was the Counsel Assisting the Coroner during the Inquest into the deaths of five Australian journalists at Balibo in East Timor.

The incident was the subject of the 2009 film Balibo which won several awards.

Tedeschi prosecuted Phuong Ngo for the assassination of New South Wales Member of Parliament John Newman.

He resigned as a Crown Prosecutor in February 2018, making him the longest serving Crown Prosecutor and Senior Crown Prosecutor in the State's history.

During his career as a prosecutor, he worked on numerous high-profile cases in New South Wales.