THE King and Queen of Spain have cancelled their December state visit to Jamaica, immediately setting off speculation that the decision was triggered by a lawsuit against two Spanish-owned hotels being sued over the alleged theft of an estimated 500 truckloads of sand.

High level government sources confirmed last night that the December 2 to 4 visit by King Juan Carlos and his wife had been scrapped, but no official reasons were given, and the telephones at the Spanish embassy rang without answer.

But it was expected that the Royal couple would have attended functions at two of the Spanish hotels named in the suit, as part of their itinerary.

The state-run Jamaica Information Service (JIS) which was handling the media accreditation for the state visit, plans to call off the process officially today, a spokesperson said.

“The feeling at the palace is that the timing of the visit may be bad because the royal couple could be embarrassed if they landed in the middle of a controversial lawsuit,” a well placed Observer source said.

News of the cancellation coincided with the filing of the US$8-million claim on November 17 by Fecilitas Limited, owners of the Coral Spring property in Trelawny from which the sand mysteriously disappeared in July.

Three hotels – two of them, Spanish-owned Riu Jamaicotel and Felicitas Jamaica – were named in the lawsuit filed by former solicitor-general Anthony Hylton on behalf of Felicitas. The third is Palmyra Resort and Spa. A company called Bedrock Building and Aggregates Limited was named as the fourth defendant in the Felicitas claim.

Felicitas is a consortium of 15 of Jamaica’s most successful young entrepreneurs who shared a common dream of transforming a prime 64-acre property at Coral Spring near Duncans into an $8-billion beachfront development, featuring 36 six-star, luxury villas with spa, restaurant, amphitheatre and marina in phase one, that would serve as a catalyst for undeveloped Trelawny. The beach was to be the centrepiece of the attraction.

The owners are contending that between June and July 2008, the defendants’ servants or agents unlawfully and without consent removed a large quantity of sand from its property at Coral Springs and delivered it to properties owned by Fiesta, Riu and Palmyra.

They are seeking damages for trespass; conversion; or alternatively delivery up of the sand taken from their property; costs; interest at commercial rates and “such further or other relief as the court may deem appropriate”. Felicitas estimates its losses at US$8.13 million

The developers are staking their claim on forensic tests carried out by the Marine Geology Unit at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies and the Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering at Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada which “support a conclusion that samples of sand taken from the defendant hotels’ properties are very likely to have come from the Coral Springs property”.

The theft of the sand marked one of the few low points, up to this year’s US economic fallout, in the local tourism industry where a dramatic boom in hotel construction in Jamaica over the past five years brought new entrants, mainly from Spanish companies such as RIU, Iberostar and The Pinero Group.

The Riu Hotel chain which was involved in another controversy over building breaches near Montego Bay, invested US$250 million in Jamaica during the period.

The cancellation of the Royal visit also coincided with a follow-up call from the Opposition Spokesman on Tourism, Dr Wykeham McNeill yesterday on the Office of the Prime Minister and the security forces to break their silence on the issue of the stolen sand.

“In August, a month after the theft, the country was informed that a report had gone to Cabinet and was being forwarded to the police, but since then there has been a deafening silence on the matter,” McNeill complained in a release.

“I am again warning the Government that the longer this silence continues, there will be more rumours and speculation of a cover-up. We the Opposition will not rest until we get an answer as to who was behind the theft of the sand, and why it is taking so long to resolve this case,” he added.