A land saga that started in the early 2000's has ended up costing the government almost 10 million dollars.
It's parcel 4670 in the Buttonwood Bay area owned by Primrose Gabourel and it first made the news as far back as 2006. That's when Gabourel's son, Dyon Zabaneh was filling up the parcel of land - and the Department of the environment was stopping him - because that parcel happened to be in the sea.
And through the years, this dance of deterrence and dispossession with the DOE has continued with many highs and lows - mostly lows….culminating in that time in January 2019, when Zabaneh exploded on the DOE officers who delivered a stop order to him.
But after that, Zabaneh won decisive victories in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal where government was ordered to compensate Primrose Gabourel for the land that had - by that time - been compulsorily acquired.
Government appealed to the CCJ and in a judgement delivered today, the appeal was dismissed. Worse than that, the award given to Gabourel has now increased to just under 10 million dollars.
The court found that Gabourel must be compensated 4. 5million dollars plus 6% annual interest from February 2007 to the present day plus be reimbursed 300,000 dollars for landfill.
Godfrey Smith, Hector Guerra and Mikhail Arguelles appeared for Primrose Gabourel and Assistant Solicitor General, Samantha Matute, for the Ministry of Natural Resources.
