This archive report was first published on 31 July 2019.
On July 31, 2019, the Environment and Lands Court in Malindi made a landmark ruling in a long-standing dispute over a multi-million tourism property in Watamu village.
Justice J Olola ordered the National Police Service to evict Giovani Ozzi, Damaris Nthenya, and their associates from the Mawimbi lodges and two other properties in Malindi, as they were illegally occupying them.
The court ruled that the property belongs to Joyce Jepleting Reinhard, a Kenyan woman who was married to a German investor, Daniel Bernhard Reinhard.
According to Justice Olola, the property was inherited by the couple from their late father, Daniel Hefti, who died in 1999.
Jepleting and her husband filed a suit in court in 2012, seeking to take over the property from the current occupants, who were claiming ownership illegally. A judgment was ruled in her favor last year, July.
The judge dismissed three applications filed by Ozzi, Nthenya, and Andus Keller, a tenant in one of the properties, saying they lacked merit.
Olola also ordered the plaintiff to cater for the costs of all four applications.
Jepleting expressed joy after the ruling but requested police protection, citing threats she had received on several occasions.
