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Matthew Vella
A priest with an extensive portfolio of business interests has been identified to have signalled available tracts of land to sell off, Gozitan property dealer Domenico Savio Spiteri said in court on Wednesday.
In a libel case he instituted against MaltaToday on its extensive reports in the ambiguous sale of lands at Wied Mejxu in Ta’ l-Ibragg, Spiteri said priest Renato Valente would inform him of available land for sale.
The priest, a testamentary executor, was formerly a business partner of Spiteri’s, and today runs an English-language school for foreign students.
“He was a friend of mine and he told me about the inheritance. I bought the land without looking at the plans. I did not know of any problems about it after I sold it,” Spiteri told the Court.
The Wied Mejxu land deals left Elton Penza and his wife Cheryll fighting for their home after the government’s lands division informed them they had purchased property on land which belonged to the government.
The Penzas had purchased their home from company Terra Mediterranea, which in turn bought its land from Spiteri Holdings, the company run by Domenico Savio Spiteri.
MaltaToday’s investigations into the case identified Renato Valente as the priest who sold off the so-called Xuereb inheritance to Spiteri.
Valente was the executor for the will left by siblings Pawlu and Tereza Xuereb, instructed by a Court of Magistrates to sell off its contents. He sold off the inheritance to Domenico Savio Spiteri, a former business partner, in a contract signed by notary Tony Abela – the junior minister under Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.
The inheritance, valued at Lm7,000 by a court expert back in 1996, consisted of two fields in an area known as Tal-Franciz, in the village of Ta’ l-Ibragg.
Yet a contract of sale between Spiteri and Terra Mediterranea in 2002 for the sale of land in “Triq Wied Mejxu, tal-Ibragg” became the source of an ambiguous deal: according to the contract, Spiteri claimed he had acquired the land from the Xuereb inheritance – but the inheritance’s two fields were separated from Wied Mejxu by a distance of 775 metres.
The Penza family, shortly after buying their Wied Mejxu property from Terra Mediterranea, were informed less than a year after that the land actually belonged to the government. Spiteri told the Court he did not know the land was being claimed by the Joint Office.
In evidence presented to the courts, where the Penzas have sued Terra Mediterranea, the land in question formerly belonged to the Catholic Church but was later transferred to the government as part of the Church-State agreement.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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