Sliema apartment no longer a mosque - Mepa

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority has filed a counter-protest in the First Hall of the Civil Court rebutting allegations made against it by four apartment owners in Sliema.

The residents - Graziella Decesare, Ethel Bonello, Carmelo Cassar and Philip Bonello - had filed a judicial protest in which they had called upon Mepa to implement its own stop and enforcement order in connection with an unauthorised mosque in their apartment block on Tower Road.

The residents had claimed that Mepa had, in July 2001, issued the notice against the owner of the apartment and the director of the mosque on the basis that the apartment had been changed to a place of public worship without authorisation.

Although this notice had been confirmed by both Mepa's appeals board and the Court of Appeal, the apartment was still being utilised as a mosque. Thus, the owner and the director were blatantly challenging the judgment of the Court of Appeal and were using the mosque in clear violation of the law, the apartment owners charged.

They said the mosque was still open to the public as a place of worship and that a number of Moslems attended the apartment on a daily basis for prayer.

Mepa is, however, insisting there is no illegality in the current use of the premises.

It said that when a notice had been displayed indicating that the apartment was a mosque, Mepa had issued a stop and enforcement notice to halt this illegality. The use of the apartment as a mosque had ceased and the notice removed.

It was now clear that the apartment was used for residential purposes but, Mepa added, some of its residents were allowing other persons to enter the apartment in order to pray.

No stop and enforcement notice could be issued on the basis of these facts, the authority said, as there was nothing illegal in the use to which the apartment was being put.