“Gargour Land” lawsuit back to the drawing board as judge abandons case

High ranking source at the Libyan judicial cases’ administration, who preferred to remain unnamed for security reasons, has disclosed to 218TV the details of the Egyptian Appeals Court of Tuesday about “Gargour” case of Habin Hanna family who are asking for compensation from the state of Libya.

The source said the Egyptian court didn’t tackle the case because of “embarrassment”, adding that “Egypt could be pressuring for having the compensation case won for the family – 262 million dollars – in order to take the money, knowing that it was confiscated by Egyptian Judiciary earlier this year.

The sources who was briefed from representatives who attended the Tuesday court session, said the court adjourned the ruling and sent the case back to technical division for sending it to another court, adding that both the family and Libyan state representatives were attending.

Details of Adjourned Case

The source said the Egyptian Appeals Court would be looking into the unfreezing of the 262 million dollars of the Libyan Foreign Bank and then into the request of the Libyan Court Cases Administration to remove the whole lawsuit from the Egyptian courts’ records.

A Libyan Family Asks for Compensation

The source added that a Libyan family is intending to file a lawsuit at Egyptian courts to sue the Hanna Family for their false allegations about the land and that the family – remaining anonymous – is going to file the case soon.

The source also indicated that the Libyan family had bought a huge part of the land from Hanna Family at the time the family was the owner of the land and documented the purchase at the Libyan courts. He added that the Libyan family had also lodged a lawsuit against the state of Libya after 2011calling for compensation for the damage done to the land during Gaddafi’s regime and the case is still ongoing.

The Libyan family wanted money compensation for the land in Gargour area – 200 hectares – after it bought the land in the 1960s for investment but the Libyan state nationalized it in the 1970s.

History of the Land

It was bought by Hanna Family in the 1960s in Gargour area in Tripoli as an investment contract but in the 1970s, Libya’s government nationalized it amid the same procedure for all state proprietors across the country, hence; the Hanna Family lodged lawsuits in Egypt for three times calling for compensations – between the 1970s and 1990s. However, all cases were dismissed for lack of specialization by Egyptian courts.