Cape Town - A Zimbabwean government-owned property in the city will finally go under the hammer to compensate farmers whose land was seized, five years after it was attached by a court.
The property in Salisbury Road in Kenilworth was bought by the Zimbabwean government in 1994 and was used by the Zimbabwe Consulate in Cape Town.
In 2011, the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg ruled that the property could be auctioned off but the Zimbabwean government blocked the sale when it went to the Supreme Court of Appeal. It finally went to the Constitutional Court, which upheld the previous judgments and dismissed the case last month.
Willie Spies, a lawyer representing the farmers, said they wanted the auction to be held immediately. “There has been nothing arranged yet. But the sale will go ahead within the next four to six weeks,” he said.
Spies said that property could fetch anything between R1 million and R3m, which would be proportionally paid out to the three farmers and a German bank. He said the property had been occupied by a Cape Town family since 2002, but they had vacated it because of the court action.
The farmers are Louis Fick, Michael Campbell and Richard Etheredge, whose farms were among about 4 000 seized during the violent land occupation that took place in Zimbabwe.
German banking group KFW Bank Gruppe and AfriForum, which has supported and represented the farmers, had initially attached two other properties in Zonnebloem and Wynberg. KFW Bank Gruppe had been owed more than e40 million by Zimbabwe.
All three properties were to go on auction in 2011, but this was halted by court action by the Zimbabwean government.
The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg ruled that the properties in Wynberg and Zonnebloem enjoyed diplomatic protection.
The Kenilworth property could be auctioned off because it was being rented out to a third party, which showed that it was being used commercially, and so no longer enjoyed diplomatic protection.
AfriForum said the property was attached by the Southern African Development Community Tribunal against the Zimbabwe government in 2008.
“The dismissal of the appeal by the Zimbabwean government means that, for the first time in international legal history, it will be possible to proceed with the legal sale of a property belonging to a state found guilty of gross human rights violations,” the organisation said.
Cape Times