Katsimberis trial deferred to November

THE trial of builder, Georgios Katsimberis who stands accused of duping Pokugara Properties (Pvt) Limited of close to US$1 million in a joint venture to build cluster houses in Harare’s Borrowdale suburb, was yesterday deferred to November 8 following indications that the presiding magistrate is on leave.

Harare regional magistrate Mr Themba Kuwanda who presided over the matter, told Katsimberis that he was postponing the matter as the magistrate handling it was not available.

The Supreme Court early this week threw out Katsimberis’ appeal in the case in which he was seeking to stop his former business partner from selling residential stands on a disputed upmarket piece of land in Borrowdale.

The ruling comes after Katsimberis and his company, Coolfitch Investments, approached the superior court challenging a High Court decision to strike off the court roll his urgent application for lack of merit in a judgment in which Justice Joseph Mafusire expressed concern over the contractor, hiding behind the fact that another judge had already ruled on the matter.

Through his legal counsel, Mr Tendai Biti, Katsimberis and his company had sued former business partner Mr Kenneth Sharpe and owner of Pokugara Properties, along with Harare couple Erasmus and Sibusiwe Chindove, who bought a residential stand from Pokugara.

However, his bid to overturn the decision of the court of lower level slumped again yesterday, when a three-judge panel of Justices Chinembiri Bhunu, Hlekani

Mwayera and Samuel Kudya dismissed the appeal.

In its ruling, the court agreed with Mr Sharpe’s legal counsel Advocate Tawanda Zhuwarara that Mr Katsimberis had no legal basis to stop Pokugara Properties from selling its land.

This is another major development in the dispute between Katsimberis and Mr Sharpe and marks the second time the Supreme Court has ruled against Katsimberis.

In 2018, the Supreme Court threw out yet another appeal by Katsimberis where he wanted to stop Mr Sharpe and Pokugara Properties from selling property that belonged to them.

The Supreme Court also confirmed that the High Court was correct to order Katsimberis to pay costs on a punitive scale because of the bad pleadings he had filed in the High Court and that he had also hidden the fact that there were previous court decisions he had lost.

Katsimberis lawyer Advocate Tererai Mafukidze, instructed by Tendai Biti Law Chambers, had to admit that while Katsimberis wanted an interdict, the facts did not warrant the granting of such an order.

This marks the end to a long saga where Katsimberis wanted to get an order stopping Pokugara from selling its properties to the public.

Katsimberis had wanted to interdict Pokugara from transferring the property to the Chindove couple until the dispute between him and Mr Sharpe was resolved.

In the lower court, Justice Mafusire ruled

that the relief that Katsimberis sought was not urgent and struck the matter off the roll without hearing arguments on their merit, upholding the preliminary objections raised by Mr Sharpe’s legal counsel who brought to the attention of the judge that the matter was once dealt with by another judge, but was being smuggled back to court disguised as a completely different matter.

He ruled that Katsimberis’ application should thus fail since the matter had been dealt with, and criticised Katsimberis conduct saying he deserved censure.

In that case, Katsimberis made a monumental blunder when he omitted material facts surrounding his case, with Justice Mafusire saying if that was deliberate then that was the height of misconduct.

“No court can relate to cause of action on the merits when some material facts surrounding it have been concealed from it,” said Justice Mafusire then.