You may remember Rupert Myles - back in December he gave an interview about what happened to him over a decade ago. He was accused of building his house on top of a Maya mound as part of the Uxbenka site. He was handcuffed and marched out of Santa Cruz in the Toledo District.
Through a long and circuitous legal route, that led to today where he was back in court facing a civil suit for trespass, and breach of property rights. The case is before Justice Hondora and Myles is the first defendant while the Attorney General and Cisco Construction are the second and third. The claimants are Manuel Pop and the village of Santa Cruz, represented by Leslie Mendez.
After the session, she explained why the matter had been indefinitely adjourned.
Leslie Mendez, Attorney For Claimants
"The matter was set for trial today but because we have already recently made an application before the Caribbean Court of Justice seeking clarification on the scope of the Consent Order, this matter was adjourned pending that clarification of the CCJ of our application."
"All the parties are affected by the delay of the trial. What accounts significantly to the delay is that initially it was dismissed so we had to go to the court of appeal so the court could review that decision to dismiss and now we're before the high court."
Javier Williams, Legal Advice & Services Center
"All parties agreed that whatever comes from that application can affect the outcome of this case so we were all minded to give that adjournment so that the CCJ can gives that ruling and from there we will see how the case proceeds."
Courtney Menzies:
"In what way does it affect now the defendant who has been waiting for his day in court for a long time?"
Javier Williams, Legal Advice & Services Center
"Unfortunately for Mr Myles, it seems as though he will wait a bit longer but in terms of what we're seeking we believe the time won't affect anything we're seeking on his behalf."
"The claimants case is on the customary rights and they want to know what scope and what power the person or the community has on the land. Our case depends wholly on whether or not our client would have gotten permission from the people or whatever permission he was given. So the application will clarify what extent of power the community has and that can affect whether we have a claim or they have a claim."
We'll keep following the story.
