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Matthew Vella
Tempers flared earlier this week in Court in the contentious case brought by Eliza Company Ltd against farmers who are being sued by the company to vacate lands in Bahrija they have worked for generations.
Lawyer Toni Abela, the farmers’ defence counsel, presented a verbal report to the court of Mr Justice Geoffrey Valenzia claiming that Generoso Sammut, also known as Jimmy, had threatened to kill him in the law courts.
Abela told the court that Jimmy Sammut, one of the eight shareholders in Eliza who was also present in the court, had threatened to kill him in the law courts on 9 May, 2005.
Abela vehemently defended his right to report the incident to the court despite protests by Eliza’s lawyer, Tonio Azzopardi, who claimed the incident had to be reported to the competent authorities and not to the court.
Turning to Sammut, Abela flared up as he told him he would not be intimidated by his threats.
Nine farmers flanked the courtroom on Wednesday, their livelihoods facing a dubious future in the case brought against them by Eliza Company, who have marketed the 1,500 tumolos of land (1.7 million square metres) stretching from Bahrija to Gnejna for sale for the development of five-star hotels, golf courses and Disneyland-themed parks.
Eliza successfully managed to get a warrant of prohibitory injunction preventing the farmers from entering the garigue known as ix-Xaghra ta’ Xafura, where they claimed the farmers were hunting and trapping, sowing trees and erecting concrete structures, as well as scaring off potential buyers for the land.
No permits exist for the development of the land, a special conservation area shortlisted for the EU’s Natura 2000 sites that also hosts archaeological sites of national importance.
Sammut is one of the accused in the 1999 theft of stolen paintings, furniture and other items from Villa Fiorentina in Attard, along with former METCO chairman Norman Zammit, also a shareholder in Eliza Company Ltd.
Sammut is also accused of slightly injuring Inspector Angelo Caruana and attacking, resisting, insulting, threatening and disobeying the police officers who apprehended him after the tip-off that led to the discovery of the stolen paintings.
He is also accused of committing a crime during the operative term of a suspended jail term and relapsing.
The two men had been granted bail by Magistrate Carol Peralta.
The two men, along with shareholders Emanuel, Joseph and Carmel Baldacchino, Ninu ‘il-Hasana’ Cuschieri and George Cuschieri, and Anthony Galea, purchased the land in 1997 from Salvatore Consoli-Palermo-Navarra, the 9th Count of Bahria, who lives in Sicily.
The defendant farmers suffered injuries at the hands of the company director-shareholders after a brawl on May 9, when architect Joseph Ellul Vincenti, appointed by the court to draft fresh plans of the area, was on site with the farmers and Eliza Company shareholders, when a series of verbal exchanges turned into a fight.
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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