Supreme court upholds seizing Zimbabwe assets
Gavel. File photo.
Image by: Gallo Images/Thinkstock
Image by: Gallo Images/Thinkstock
South Africa's Supreme Court dismisses a Zimbabwe government appeal against seizure of its property in Cape Town to compensate for its take-over of a white-owned farm in Zimbabwe.
A tribunal of the Southern African Development Community in 2008 ruled that the government's grabs of white-owned farmland in Zimbabwe were illegal and racist. President Robert Mugabe's government argued it was part of a land reform process to redress colonial wrongs.
Zimbabwe refused to act on the court's order to restore the farms to their owners. Subsequently, the Southern African community dissolved the court.
In 2010, South Africa's High Court attached a Zimbabwe government property in Cape Town to satisfy a punitive cost order granted by the tribunal.
Thursday's dismissal upholds that ruling. The farmer who brought the case died last year.
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