Bahrija landowners lose court case to remove farmers’ huts
Matthew Vella A court has denied a request by the owners of 1.5 million square metres of land in Bahrija – Eliza Company Ltd – to remove beehives, traps, huts, trees and hunting hides erected by farmers on the land.
The court decision comes only months after Norman Zammit, a former METCO chairman who is also an Eliza shareholder, was ordered by the court to pay over €1.9 million (Lm828,000) in debts to Bank of Valletta, for the loan used to purchase the land in Bahrija.
The controversy in Bahrija goes back to 2003, when Eliza Company filed court cases in a bid to evict the farmers from land they had occupied for generations.
In the latest court decision, the court found that the structures erected by the farmers had already been on the land when Eliza Company’s shareholders purchased it.
Additionally, the court said Eliza’s shareholders bought the land in full knowledge that parts of the land was already being let out to the farmers, as specified in the contract of sale.
The court said it could not find the farmers guilty of having carried out their works abusively.
Norman Zammit, along with shareholders Emanuel, Joseph and Carmel Baldacchino, Ninu Cuschieri, George Cuschieri, Anthony Galea, and Generoso Sammut are still at the heart of a fierce land tussle after farmers in Bahrija reported that the company shareholders had tried to evict them.
The land was previously owned by the Baron of Bahria, Salvatore Consoli-Palermo-Navarra, whose Italian and Maltese heirs sold the land for Lm1,080 million (€2.5m).
In 2005, Eliza Company started marketing the sale of 1.5 million square metres of Bahrija land on the internet, a website which no longer exists.
The 1,500-tumolo area, known as il-Qortin and overlooking the bay at Fomm ir-Rih, is a green area and development there is prohibited.
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