Earlier in the news you hear the attorney General battling it out for his government on multiple hot button legal issues.
But, his office is also pursuing a countersuit against members of the former government, former Minister of Natural Resources Hugo Patt among them.
He spoke about the land dealings involving companies affiliated with Roosevelt Blades - who is the political officer for former UDP Leader, Patrick Faber:
Anthony Sylvestre, Attorney General
"There are several parcels of land, huge tracts of land, which there a company, the principals Mr. Blades who had acquired these lands, these lands were sold to them. At the time they were acquired by, yes they were crown lands. But here is the thing, before they became crown lands they were compulsory acquired at an exorbitant sum, the compensations were in excess of millions of dollars. These lands haven been acquired for public purpose it was said, they were later sold to private developers for sums less than a hundred thousand dollars."
"In consequence of that the government has been reviewing the matter for some time and claim in misfeasance has been brought former Minister of Natural Resources Hugo Patt, as well as the company, because the company interestingly sued government, because government said man you get this but really and truly the way in which it was gotten there are circumstances which surrounds it which is a shroud of to put it mildly, impropriety. They brought a claim and the government in response said ok, we will counter sue. We bring a claim for damages for what the Belizean people and the government lost when the land, which was compulsory acquired for millions of dollars was in turn sold to this third party for pittance."
Jules Vasquez
"How much is quantum of the suit, six million?"
Anthony Sylvestre
"Yes it is six million."
As you heard, the companies are also filing suit against the government - and we'll tell you about that tomorrow.
