Ruling on Zim diamonds confiscated in Belgium set for December 4

A full hearing on the confiscated Zimbabwean diamonds worth $45 million by Amari Platinum was heard in Belgium last week and judgment will be delivered on December 4, an official has said.
Mines ministry legal advisor advocate Farai Mutamangira was quoted by Herald Business as saying that the Belgian court had also postponed the Dutch farmers claim to the same diamonds to December 18 when full hearing on the matter would be heard.
"We introduced our applications to establish the ownership of the diamonds by the mining companies separately in the course of the month of September. The full hearing was [last Thursday],” he said.
"We have now just been advised that the judge heard arguments on the Amari/ZMDC and the diamond mining companies' case. The ruling or determination in that case will be available on the 4th of December." 
Mutamangira said the court would make a determination on whether or not the various diamond mining companies, Mbada, DTZ, Marange, Anjin, Gye Nyame and DMC, had actually approved that they own the diamonds separately in their own name to the exclusion of ZMDC and the government of Zimbabwe as shareholders. 
“We are looking forward to that," he said.
Amari obtained an ex parte order to seize the proceeds of diamonds that were on auction at Antwerp over disputed cancellation of its platinum claims by Harare in 2010.
Mutangamira said the issues at play in the Amari case were the same as in the Dutch farmers' case.
The 12 Dutch white farmers approached the court seeking to attach the same diamonds after Harare compulsorily acquired their farms under the land reform programme in 2000.
Mutamangira said in the event that the court finds that the diamonds belonged to the diamond mining companies, it would be safer that the diamonds be sold in Zimbabwe where there are no risk of attachment until measures are put in place to prevent similar occurrences.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished