Linda Orams’ day in court
By Jean Christou
LINDA Orams broke down during her testimony at last month’s British High Court hearing after a videotape was shown that contradicted some of her earlier statements.
Transcripts from the hearings, given to the Sunday Mail, show the extent to which the Orams defence team pushed for more consideration of the political situation on the island rather than any purely legal challenge to the ownership of the Lapithos property by Greek Cypriot Meletis Apostolides.
The documents also reveal how Tom Beazley, the British barrister representing Apostolides, poked holes in two of the main arguments by the Orams’ legal counsel, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie Booth.
At one point, Booth, who repeatedly attempted to politicise the proceedings, told the judge that what was happening to the Orams wasn’t fair, while Linda Orams referred to the Greek Cypriot side as the “lion’s den” and “the enemy camp”.
The landmark case centres on Booth’s attempts to justify the possession of the land, where the Orams built a villa. The High Court hearing came as a result of an earlier Nicosia court ruling to demolish the house, return the land to its rightful owner, along with compensation.
However, as the Nicosia court decision could not be enforced in the north, the case was registered in Britain under EU regulations.
In addition to Booth’s pressure on the political angle, she was also hoping to score points on Linda Orams’ claims that she was not properly served with the original writ, and that she was given an unfair hearing at the Nicosia court.
However, unknown to Orams and Booth, the lawyer for Apostolides in Cyprus, Constandis Candounas, had videotaped the service of the summons, and it clearly contradicted what Orams had initially stated.
Candounas told the Sunday Mail that he had kept quiet about the existence of the videotape until 10 days before the hearings in London.
“At the time of service, I felt perhaps an additional record regarding events to take place might prove useful, therefore I videotaped the whole thing,” he told Sunday Mail. As he told the court: “I think subsequent events have shown that perhaps I was right.”
INSIDE THE HIGH COURT
SINCE the start of the Orams case in October 2004, the British couple and their lawyers were claiming that Linda Orams had all along been treated unfairly by the Greek Cypriot side, from the serving of the initial summons to her court appearances in Nicosia.
But the showing of the video tape during the British High Court hearings forced her to change her statements.
Orams had claimed that she was approached in the garden at dusk by strange men who handed her some papers in Greek and rushed off, leaving her frightened and confused.
“The writ of summons was handed over to Mrs Orams on October 26, 2004 in broad daylight,” said Candounas who was close by. He said the two men who approached Orams were the bailiff, a Greek Cypriot, and a Turkish Cypriot man named Ercin Fevzi.
“Mrs Orams was in the garden at the time. She was approached with the writ but refused to sign for it. They talked for a minute in English and left,” said Candounas.
“The case being made by the Orams was that when the service of the summons was done, it was almost dark and two strange-looking men approached her, gave her the summons and ran away leaving her stressed and frightened.”
“At the time of service I felt perhaps an additional record regarding events to take place might prove useful therefore I videotaped the whole thing.”
Candounas said when the tape was produced in court, Tom Beazley, the British barrister for the Greek Cypriot owner of the land, Meletis Apostolides commented that there were “an awful lot of wobbles and I do not think Mr Candounas is ever going to be at the Cannes Film Festival”.
“It showed that it wasn’t dark and nobody left hurriedly or ‘ran away’. So the Orams had to abandon one of their major arguments, which was about the service of the original summons, that it was improper,” said Candounas.
Beazley said the video tape made it quite clear that the two men spoke to Orams and then walked away.
“I also draw attention to the light and to the fact that they did not run away or scurry away,” Beazley said.
Booth called the service of the summons “clandestine” but the Judge merely asked her if it had been effective, because that was all that concerned him, not whether it was fair or unfair.
She answered: “We do not now, as you have seen, take any substantive points about service, rather relying on the general unfairness of the proceedings.”
Booth moved on to the grounds of appeal filed by the Orams, that the couple was being asked to do something impossible; demolish the house and transfer ownership to Apostolides.
Beazley knocked down the latter comment in one fell swoop.
“It is not suggested they have to transfer ownership. Ownership has been established already by the Cypriot court to belong to the respondent… There is no order of this court to transfer ownership. So that is irrelevant,” he said.
Secondly, Booth was arguing that demolishing the house was impossible because it could only be done by “the executive of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus."
“It is not suggested that that would not be done, could not be done. Nobody has been asked, there is no evidence of the TRNC executive ever having been asked about this, simply nothing in it at all. So it is not impossible and could not be established to be impossible,” Beazley said.
“It is not suggested that they have been asked and refused. There is no evidence of any sort about that whatsoever.”
Booth then interjected, saying it was an essential part of her client’s case.
“It is the case that she is being asked to do something which she cannot do,” said Booth. “I reiterate again, an important part of our case in relation to public policy is that the court should not be instructing my client, even still less putting her property in the UK at risk, to do something which she cannot do.”
Booth then cited the law of the European Court of Human Rights that in recognising the rights to a fair trial they encompass all stages of the legal proceedings, including the enforcement of judgments.
“In relation to that, we say that here we have an order which, in practice, and in the reality, is impossible to enforce in Cyprus, and to make such an order is actually contrary to the right to have a fair trial,” she said.
The fact that Linda Orams was served her summons in Greek was also unfair, Booth said. In his testimony, Candounas had made it clear that a summons could only be issued in the official language of the country, which is Greek.
The language issue was also part of the Booth’s arguments, as she cited the problems Orams had in finding a translator, although it emerged during the hearings that her Turkish Cypriot lawyer spoke fluent Greek and had used Greek during the Nicosia court case.
Candounas told the Sunday Mail he was hopeful for the outcome of the case.
He said the most important question was how the court would interpret Protocol 10, which says the acquis is not applicable in the north.
“Protocol 10 says the acquis is not applicable in those areas of the Republic of Cyprus where the Republic cannot exercise effective control. So this means two things.
“First of all it actually recognises that the occupied north is part of the Republic of Cyprus, which is the most important thing. This was done in order to protect the Republic of Cyprus from any claims from the EU regarding violations of the acquis in the north.
“Obviously everyone agreed that the Republic should not be accountable for what happens in the north in this respect so Protocol 10 was a shield for the Republic, not a sword against it,” said Candounas.
“Arguing that the acquis was suspended in the north, they are claiming that there should have been no judgment and it cannot be enforced, but this is incorrect in the sense that the court here first of all has jurisdiction in the north, because it is part of the Republic of Cyprus as far as the courts of the Republic of Cyprus are concerned, and secondly the law used is the law of the Republic of Cyprus. But most importantly the regulation says that the enforcing court, that is the court in the UK, cannot look into whether the originating court had jurisdiction or not,” Candounas said.
“So even if their interpretation of Protocol 10 is correct, and we say it is incorrect, still it cannot be disputed at that level.”
He said part of the Nicosia judgment was that the Orams have to hand possession to Mr Apostolides. “The Turkish side are not in possession of the land, the Orams are. They should deliver possession to Mr Apostolides or to whoever Mr Apostolides asks them to, without the house on it,” he said.
CHERIE SHEDS A TEAR
CANDOUNAS said that after the hearings were finished he approached Cherie Booth to say goodbye
“I went to all of them and said ‘thank you very much, goodbye’. So I went up to Mrs Blair and told her I’d come to say goodbye and I wondered whether she had a minute,” said Candounas.
“I told her there was something I wanted to tell her, so she turned to me and said: ‘I’m not fragile you know’, and her eyes were red and she forced back one tear. I was very surprised and I said ‘you seem to be very emotional’ and she said: ‘Yes I’m emotional about the injustice of it all.’ I said ‘okay, I just wanted to say it was a great pleasure to have met you and it was an honour to have been cross-examined by you.’”
Candounas also said he told Booth that he understood the arguments she had made, although he disagreed with them. He said he then made it clear to her that Greek Cypriots wanted a solution in Cyprus.
“Greek Cypriots want to go home,” he told her, adding: “In your arguments you said if this judgment is registered in the UK, it will make finding a solution to the Cyprus problem more difficult. I told her it was exactly the opposite. I said if these people are allowed to come and take Greek Cypriot properties, at the end of the day there be will nothing left for Greek Cypriots to go back to, and this is what will make finding a solution impossible. She went silent.”
Candounas said what was interesting was that at the beginning of the hearings Booth was using the correct terminology like ‘invasion’ but then probably “having received different instructions” she switched to ‘intervention’ when referring to the 1974 Turkish invasion.
“I was actually very impressed with the way Mrs Blair handled the case,” he said. “She surpassed her reputation.”
During her cross examination of Candounas, Booth asked him why he was videoing the service of the summons. “At the time I felt that it would be a good idea to have an additional record of what was about to happen. I think subsequent events have shown that perhaps I was right,” he told the court.
The following exchange ensued:
“Q: Why did you not instruct someone who could speak English to Mr and Mrs Orams to go along and accompany the service document – the document?
A: Mr Tirmos speaks English. The process server speaks English. And as a matter of fact I think that comes out from the evidence provided by your client.
Q: Why did you not suggest that they give an explanation of what they were doing to Mr and Mrs Orams?
A: My Lord, it is not my job to tell the process server how to do his job.
Q: Have you made any attempt to get the land occupied by Turkish Cypriots for Mr Apostolides?
MR JUSTICE JACK: What is the relevance of this?
MS BOOTH: My Lord, it is relevant to the question of whether or not – as you will see – the reason that these proceedings have been taken is because they can enforced here and they cannot be enforced in North Cyprus.
MR BEAZLEY: My Lord, it is simply completely irrelevant. It is not a question for this witness; it is a judgment of the court of Cyprus which is being enforced here. The reason for it is entirely besides the point and it is common ground that the Republic does not have effective control in the northern area.
MS BOOTH: So you accept that you cannot enforce any judgments of the south Cypriot courts in the north of Cyprus?
A: I would not say that but, if I can respond, if I can respond to your previous question, I never received any instructions other than this case.”
Booth also complained to the judge that in addition to ordering her clients to give up possession of the property, to “go further than simply possession” they were also being asked to demolish the house and the swimming pool, on which the Orams had spent £160,000.
Booth said that leaving aside what they paid for the land, they had also enhanced a piece of land which had been “essentially lemon trees”.
LINDA ORAMS BREAKS DOWN
LINDA Orams and her husband knew when they bought the land belonging to Meletis Apostolides that there was a risk it might be Greek Cypriot property, the British High Court transcripts reveal.
Asked by Apostolides’ barrister Tom Beazley whether she accepted that the whole of northern Cyprus was territory of the Republic she said: “No, I do not accept that.”
Orams admitted she was aware of the political situation but: “I knew, but, as with everything, I strongly feel there are two sides to every case concerning everything in life and there are two sides to Cyprus.”
She said that initially when she and her husband were considering buying the property they took steps to find out whether the land had been owned by Greek Cypriots or Turkish Cypriots before 1974.
Orams said the couple were assured by the lawyer that it was owned by a Turkish Cypriot who believed genuinely that it was his land because he had bought it from another Turkish Cypriot who had been given it as compensation in 1975.
She said there were no property searches they could have done in the north to find out for certain.
Asked by Beazley: “But you knew that you were taking at the very least a risk that this was Greek Cypriot property originally?” she answered: “A very slight risk, a very slight risk.”
Questioned further on whether it was a risk she was willing to run, she added: “I suppose, yes, but we really did consider it was a very small risk.”
However, she said she could not have equated the situation four years ago with the situation today, since the crossings began.
She said if the Annan plan had been approved, she and her husband would have been more than happy to consider paying compensation as specified on that basis, should the issue arise.
When Beazley quizzed Orams about the day the summons was delivered, she pleaded confusion about dates and times, and despite having changed her statement following the submission of the videotape she still insisted it was dark when she was served.
“You say in your witness statement that it was ‘fairly dark’ but actually it was about 4 or 4.30 (pm) and it was light. We saw that, did we not?” said Beazley.
Orams insisted it was much later. “I am sure. One waters the garden in the evening in Cyprus for the reason that otherwise the water is wasted due to evaporation. I do not water at 4 o'clock in the afternoon ever.”
She also insisted that they still had “scurried away”, despite video evidence to the contrary.
She did acknowledge in her second statement that she had been spoken to in English but she didn’t know she was being served with legal documents.
But Beazley showed that according to her written statement, she said: "... then provided me with a pen and invited me to sign that I had accepted service."
Then she changed her mind on the stand: “I see I have written that. It is so confusing, it really is. I know now that – perhaps, sorry – I think he may have said: ‘Will you sign to say you have received these?’ I am absolutely sure he did not say ‘to accept service’ or anything like that. He just said: ‘Will you sign to say you have received them?’”
She also blamed the Nicosia hearings for the confusion in her statements.
“In the Cypriot court I was placed on the witness stand with a translator. Mr Candounas questioned me in Greek, the translator translated into English, I replied in English, the translator turned it back into Greek and the court clerk transcribed it. I have no way of knowing, because I do not speak Greek, whether the translator translated every single word accurately. I had to just trust the court proceedings. I just utterly trusted the translator to accurately translate what I said. Perhaps he did not quite.”
Orams also claimed to have had translation problems with her Turkish Cypriot lawyers. When confronted with certain signed statements she had made to them, she suggested that was not what she had said but she had no idea why her lawyers would have written them down differently in Turkish.
During cross examination, Beazley confronted Orams with a statement where she said she informed her husband, who was in England, about what had happened and he told her to contact Advocate Gunesh Hulusi Mentesh in Cyprus.
“I did not say that,” Orams told the court.
“Mr Mentesh made that up, did he?’ asked Beazley
“It was Mr Aziz,” she said.
“Mr Mentesh's partner simply made that up. It is not an error of translation. That is what you said? Beazley asked.
“All I can say is that I signed a document in Turkish that I had to believe was accurate,” said Orams.
Beazley continued:
Q But you told your lawyers that your husband had told you to contact Advocate Gunesh Hulusi Mentesh in Cyprus?
A. No, sorry, I did not. I do not know why that was there.
Q. And Mr Gunesh Hulusi Mentesh was an advocate of yours, was he not?
A. He was, eventually, yes.
Q. But he had been already, had he not?
A. No, I had never met him before this time. I had never met him until I had been chasing around Girne for nearly 10 days. I finally tracked him down and he said he would take on the case for me. Up to then I had never met him, I had never heard his name.
Q. This is evidence tendered on your behalf to the Cyprus court dated 15th November, an affidavit of merits by Advocate Gunesh Hulusi Mentesh.
Beazley said the affidavit quoted Mentesh as saying he had acted for the Orams from time to time.
“No, no, no, I have no idea why he wrote that,” Orams said.
After further questioning on the extent of the couple’s prior acquaintance with Mentesh, Orams broke down in tears and was offered a glass of water and the Judge told her to try and relax.
“I signed them in good faith. So, I am sorry, this is why I am so upset that you keep picking on this document because…,” Orams told Beazley.
“I apologise but it is the record of your sworn evidence in the Cyprus court,” he replied.
Candounas said that although it was unpleasant to see Orams break down, there were a lot of contradictions in the various statements she had made throughout the proceedings since the initial case in 2004.
“They knew what they were doing. She said they knew there was a risk but they thought it was a small risk. So where does all this purchasing in good faith come in?” he said.
“Why did they not bring into the proceedings as a third party those who allegedly sold them the land or induced them to do so?”
Asked if he felt sorry for the Orams, he said: “I feel sorry in the sense that nobody should have to undergo such inconvenience obviously. But Mrs Orams said they knew there was a risk, they evaluated the risk as being slight. Obviously I cannot be very impressed with her miscalculation.”
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