The Sunday Mail
Kuda Bwititi – Sunday Mail Reporter
The legal battle to reclaim Zimbabwe’s diamonds seized last month at the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) in Belgium has taken a new twist after government lawyers revealed that the judge who awarded Amari Platinum (Amaplat) the right to attach the precious stones is a British national with a bias against Zimbabwe owing to the frosty relations between London and Harare.
This comes as the Belgian judge at the Court of First Instance in Antwerp who heard the matter last Thursday reserved ruling to October 16 when it would be determined whether or not Zimbabwe regains ownership of the US$45 million diamonds.
The latest court decision means that the Amaplat suit and another case of former white commercial farmers who attached the diamonds in Antwerp, will both be dealt with simultaneously.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail last week, Mr Farai Mutamangira, who led a team of lawyers dispatched by Government to Belgium to challenge the attachment of the precious stones, revealed they were arguing that the initial judgment by retired British judge Mr Stuart Isaacs, who was chairman of the arbitration committee that awarded US$35 million to Amaplat, raised eyebrows.
“The Amari award is being challenged by ZMDC on two grounds that the chairman of the Arbitration, who is British, was biased and could not preside over a dispute involving an entity sanctioned by the European Union at the instigation of the British government,” he said.
Mr Mutamangira said the arbitration that led to Amari Platinum winning the lawsuit was carried out in violation of legal procedures as the matter was still pending in the courts.
“To allow for the disposal of the appeal by Amari in the Supreme Court of Zambia, our counsel in Zambia has advised that proceedings to set aside the Amari award are now set for the 21st of October 2014,” he said.
According to a report prepared by Government’s legal team to challenge the litigation, the awarding of the suit is unsustainable at law as it suggests that no diamond mining company in Zimbabwe is allowed to mine on its own account.
“The erroneous founding basis of Amaplat’s case is that no diamond mining entity in Zimbabwe is allowed to mine diamonds on its own account and that all these entities have been set up to front the ZMDC,” reads part of the report.
“Amaplat’s position is unsustainable at law as all the entities are legally separate from the ZMDC. These mining companies are independent commercial entities operating on their own account. It is common cause that the ZMDC is a creature of statute and the mining entities are corporate persons separately constituted in terms of the provisions of the Companies Act. This position is demonstrable on the basis of documents that are accessible to the public at the Companies Registry at Harare.”
About 500 000 carats of diamonds, worth approximately US$50 million, that were on sale at the AWDC were first attached by Amari Platinum before the Belgian court reversed the seizure of the precious stones, pending the court ruling.
However, a group of white former commercial farmers led by Henricus Funnekotter then proceeded to attach the same diamonds on the basis of an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes arbitration award against the Zimbabwean Government to compensate the ex-farmers.
