The Carmelite Province has mounted a legal challenge against a long-term lease agreement signed by a former prior granting a section of the Order’s Balluta garden to his brother who in turn filed a development application for a supermarket.

Provincial Alexander Vella has confirmed that former Carmelite prior Anthony Cilia signed a private document for a long lease agreement with his brother, John Cilia, in 2011. The Carmelite order is challenging the legal validity of this agreement in court.

The Sunday Times of Malta reported last week that plans to turn the Carmelite priory garden in Balluta into a supermarket were being strongly opposed by the Archbishop. Yet the Carmelite Order is also on the front line.

“The validity of the private writing has recently been challenged in court by the Carmelite Province… on a number of grounds including the fact that the agreement was in actual fact an emphyteutical grant which at law requires the formality of a public deed,” said Fr Vella.

Read more in The Sunday Times of Malta.

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