Austrian couple Manuel Stofleth Mitterer and his partner Angelika Mitterer were on Sunday evening at the Edge Apartment building in Kololi, where they subjected the receptionist to long minutes of harassment and threat of dismissal.
The duo arrived at the apartment building at around 8 pm Sunday to occupy one of the apartments there as, according to them, there was a fire outbreak in their house.
However, a tense standoff ensued between them and the receptionist, who insisted that no instruction was given to her by her boss that the couple should occupy any apartment in the block.
The Edge apartment block is still a subject of dispute between partners Ebrima Solomon Tamba, Marcel Lambertus Teunis van Andel and Manuel Stofleth Mitterer.
According to sources, Tamba and Marcel have been insisting on establishing the whereabouts of the proceeds from the sale of apartments at the Edge for some months now without any success.
The police sometime this year opened a criminal investigation against Manuel following the lodging of a criminal complaint by Tamba and Andel. The duo was reportedly suspicious that Manuel had lodged the proceeds of their investment into an account different from their joint business account. Manuel had reportedly told investigators that he had invested the proceeds from Edge apartment sales in bitcoins but when pressed by Tamba and Andel to convert the coins to euro or dollar, he could not.
Mr. Mitterer is currently being tried at the Banjul Magistrates’ Court on charges of disobeying a lawful order by refusing police investigators access to information deemed vital to their probe against him.
Meanwhile, questions have been raised as to why the high court could allow the construction at the Bitcoin Tower to continue without Manuel accounting for the proceeds from the apartment sales from the Edge.
Some believed the Austrians have been enjoying strong backing from powerful people in the system.
The Sheriff of the High Court, Omar Jabang, told JollofNews recently that the Sheriff Division received a high court order that it should supervise the construction and ensure it proceeds without any hindrance. When further asked why he was personally involved in the supervision of the project, Jabang said he was doing what the high court instructed him to do.
Meanwhile, Solomon and Marcel were reportedly in heightened fear of losing their millions of dalasi worth of investment.
