ONE of the groups involved in a legal dispute over the rightful ownership of a £2m landmark Southampton mosque is attempting to get the other barred from court proceedings.
Southampton City Council wants the High Court to declare which of the two rival factions of the Muslim community has the right to the building’s freehold.
But the Southampton Medina Mosque Trust Ltd, which has been running the mosque, pictured, as a place of worship and a community centre since 2002, will today ask a judge to bar two original mosque trustees and two of the builders from the proceedings because they have not filed their document in time. It would pave the way for the court to name the company the owners of the mosque.
The issue is in dispute after parties to the original 1997 building agreement, under which the council sold the plot in St Mary’s Road for £56,000, around a quarter of its market value, fell out.
The row has led to bloodshed and a mass brawl at the mosque and cost thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ and trustees’ money.
Trustee Mohammed Aslam, a signatory to the budding agreement who is involved in the legal claim, said: “There is no way we’re going to be forced out of the court proceedings.
“We are not going to be brushed aside by any of these bullying tactics.”
Mr Aslam said he was having “technical difficulties”
with his legal team and would welcome any financial contributions to his cause.
But Bashir Ahmed, chairman of the Southampton Medina Mosque Trust Ltd, insisted: “If they haven’t filed the papers they should be kicked out. They are messing around with court time.”
A ruling on ownership will allow the council to settle outstanding planning breaches relating to car parking and a temporary “community hut”
at the mosque.
A previous legal action, launched in 2003, was put on hold for the Charity Commission to try to sort out the ownership row. But it failed to broker an agreement.
The full trial has been pencilled in for July.
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