Seized diamonds returned to Zimbabwe

The final installment of 500,000 carats of seized diamonds with an estimated value of a little under $29 million has finally been returned to Zimbabwe, bringing a complicated dispute to a close.

Denying an attempt by a South African mining company to attach diamonds to an unrelated case against the State of Zimbabwe, a Belgian Court of First Instance ruled that the diamonds in question were not in fact the property of the State but the property of the Zimbabwean mining companies that produced them.

This ruling has now made it through the appeals process and has been implemented in full.