The Chellen family
lawyer Veda Baloomoody said he was “wary of the way the Seychelles police is
leading the enquiry into Harmon Chellen’s death”.
Mr Baloomoody’s statement comes after the press release
issued by Commissioner of Police Ernest Quatre last Wednesday following the
announcement by Attorney General Ronny Govinden, that a judicial inquest would
be set up to establish the cause of Mr Chellen’s death. In the communiqué, Mr
Quatre said that it had been established “through our investigation that Mr
Chellen did leave the Port Glaud police station unnoticed and without
permission, at around 12.10 on the day of his death, with his body found floating
in the sea near l’Islette at Port Glaud at around 2.50pm, that same day”.
“I am very surprised by this latest communiqué of the
Seychelles police. It’s the first time I hear that Harmon Chellen was supposed
to have left the police station at 12.10! I was there and I saw the Occurrence
book and it was down in black and white that Harmon Chellen left the police
station at 2.28pm. There was no entry in the Occurrence book that said anything
about 12.10. And this makes me even more wary of the way the police enquiry is
being led. This is why I am again asking, in the name of the family, that an
independent and impartial enquiry be led”, Le Défi Quotidien, a Mauritian
newspaper, quoted Mr Baloomoody as saying.
In addition more confusion still remains as originally the
Police had stated that “Chellen was brought to the police station for questioning
and left without cooperating with the police” which would presumably indicate
he was not arrested and were aware that he had left the police station. There
was no mention of him going missing and instigating a search. Bruce Bursik a
few days later told the media that when Chellen's absence was noticed, the
police immediately began searching for him; unequivocally contradicting their
earlier statement. And only recently the Attorney General indicated that he is
of the opinion that the deceased died whilst in police custody. All these
contradictions clearly point to an attempted cover up. The Mauritian autopsy
had also revealed injuries to Chellen`s left temple which the Seychelles
equivalent had surprisingly missed. The missing shoes and shirt when the body
was recovered floating at sea also adds to the mystery.
The lawyer further
asked that the enquiry not be led by the police, saying it would be “the only
way to find out what happened in the four hours that Mr Chellen was at the
police station”.
Inquests into sudden deaths are important. When a person is
found dead in suspicious circumstances, or has committed suicide, or has died
in police custody, an inquest enables society to investigate the reasons for
the death, and provides the family of the deceased with information from a
transparent and independent source as to the who, the why and the wherefore of
the death. This is important for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is
closure. The law recognises this and makes provision for it. In all cases of
sudden death the Attorney General has the discretion to order an inquest. In
cases where the death is in prison or police custody the Attorney General must
order an inquest to be held.
Because the available
law was not used as it should for many years, numerous cases of sudden deaths
went without being enquired into properly or at all. There are examples of the
numerous deaths of escaped prisoners or escaping suspects and the like who were
more often not captured alive but died in very suspicious circumstances indeed.
All these cases were deserving of an inquest so that the truth would be known
once and for all.
