Monday, November 28, 2016

31 YEARS LATER - GERARD’S MURDER IS STILL AN “OPEN CASE”

31 years have passed since the young, popular exiled resistance Seychellois leader, Gerard Hoarau, was shot dead outside his home in London. 31 years and yet still no answers with regards as to who ordered and carried out this odious crime.


Gerard was not the only victim of politically motivated murders in Seychelles. The list is long and all the murders with the exception of Gerard’s were carried out on Seychellois soil and yet again we still have no answers as to who carried out those crimes. While South Africans have exorcised their demons through a public process of national reconciliation inspired by Bishop Desmond Tutu’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, the regime in Seychelles has never bothered to initiate any public inquiries into any of the murders and disappearances of its political critics that occurred under their watch and in their own jurisdiction. Until they do so intelligent people can only assume one thing – they sanctioned those crimes and they are responsible for them.

Here we present you with some facts and ask some questions on Gerard’s case. Draw your own conclusions.

Fact: On 29th November 1985 Gerard Hoarau, President of the SNM and Head of the MPR was shot dead outside his home in London. The perpetrators of this heinous crime have still not been identified or apprehended:

Who ultimately ordered the assassination of Gerard Hoarau?
Who pulled the trigger of that Sterling sub-machine gun that emptied 33 bullets into Gerard’s body?

Fact: The British Police found out that Gerard’s movement were being monitored by sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment placed in a house next door to Gerard’s London home. That house was purchased by a company belonging to Mario Ricci who was acting as an agent of the Seychelles Government at the time.

Under whose direct instructions was Ricci acting upon?
Who hired Ian Withers and the three men who monitored Gerard’s movement on a 24 hour basis for months and eventually leading to his assassination?

Fact: Gerard was killed with a British made Sterling sub-machine gun. Those guns were standard issue to the riot control PMU squad of Seychelles Police prior to the illegal coup of 5th June 1977. These weapons were captured by the SPUP terrorists when they usurped power in the coup.

Who issued that weapon to the assassin and who used it to murder Gerard?
How was that weapon smuggled into Britain and how was it disposed of after it was used to carry out that dastardly act?

Fact: Three men were arrested by the British Police for carrying out an illegal electronic surveillance of Gerard’s activities. They were consequently prosecuted and convicted of perverting the course of public justice at the Old Bailey in London. Some interesting facts emerged from this case.
Scotland Yard Anti Terrorist Squad wanted to pursue leads that led to Seychelles. Their requests to follow those leads to collect evidence were refused by the illegal regime in Seychelles.

Why was Scotland Yard refused access to Seychelles?
Those three men reported directly to a notorious spy by the name of Ian Withers.
Who hired Ian Withers who was based and owned businesses in the Seychelles at the time?
One of the prosecuted men (a BT engineer by the name of Richards) revealed in evidence in court that the night before Gerard’s assassination, he turned up at the house to check on the equipment. When he tried to open the door, the other man Underwood who was in charge of the surveillance team, opened the door from the inside and told Richards that he could not enter because “one of their guys was inside the house” and he did not want Richards to see the person inside. Richards left without seeing who was inside. The next day Gerard was killed.

His current LinkedIn profile; British spy and MI5 agent?
Who was the mystery person that Underwood called “one of their guys”?
Why did Underwood not want Richards to see that person?
Was that person the one who ultimately shot and killed Gerard the next day?
Why did the prosecutor not ask Underwood to reveal in court, who was that person?
Did Scotland Yard officers investigating that crime, interrogate Underwood as to the description of that person?
If so does Scotland Yard know and hold a record of the description of that person and is that the reason that they wanted to follow their investigations in Seychelles?

When sentencing the three men, the British Judge Justice Potts at the Old Bailey, described their crime as vile and despicable and said that he believed that their actions had directly led to the death of an innocent man. He said that he wished that he could have given them a much more severe custodial sentence, but that regrettably he was constrained by the punishment stipulated the law relating to the specific charges against them. From the Honourable Judge’s comments it is clear that he saw a clear link between the surveillance activities and Gerard’s assassination. Therefore, the miscreants that authorised and financed that illegal surveillance activity of Gerard’s movements, were also those responsible for his murder.


Who were all the people behind that operation and who gave the ultimate order to open fire and kill Gerard Hoarau?
Margaret Thatcher meets Albert Rene at Downing Street in April 1985; a few months before Gerard is assassinated.
On the 5th of June 1977, Seychelles was taken by force by 33 men which included Chief Architect Albert Rene as referenced by Kevin Shillington’s official biography of the dictator. The biography states that Rene had begun planning for the coup immediately after the lost of the 1974 General Elections. The bloody coup was not an uprising or a revolution; they attempted an Orwellian twist of the truth to justify this act of terrorism.  A revolution is when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities; not 33 opportunists! Shortly after this act of terror in 1977 and referenced on page 214 of the same biography it reads “evidenced by MI5 allocating one of their agents to keep constant watch on Rene`s daughter Pandora, who was studying for a degree in environmental science at Leicester Technical College. They feared her security might be threatened as a way of getting at her father”. Was this unnamed MI5 agent at that time a Mr Ian D. Withers? It is odd that British Government offered protection to a dictators daughter shortly after the coup!

Gérard Hoarau’s murder remains an open case file, according to the British police, but in Seychelles, his death is an open wound that can never heal until the truth is told.