DEATH OF HARMON CHELLEN
Family asks President Michel to set up commission of enquiry
The Chellen family
organised a symposium in Mauritius to denounce what they say is the "cover
up" and the "shady dealings" in the Harmon Chellen affair.
By DB
"There's a lot of shady dealings and cover ups in
Seychelles", Harmon Chellen's widow, Jayshree told Mauritian daily
l'express on 18 August, a year to the day after she lost her husband in
Seychelles.
The Chellen family lawyer organised a symposium on that day
in Ebene, Mauritius, in a bid to raise awareness about the circumstances of
Harmon Chellen's death and the way the police enquiry has been conducted.
Commenting on the judicial enquiry set up by the Attorney
General to determine the cause of death of the Mauritian national, lawyer Rama
Valayden said he was not happy with the way it was going as he did not believe
it is the right forum to elucidate what has happened. Speaking to Le Defi
newspaper, Mr Valayden said he was convinced foul play was involved in Mr
Chellen's death and denounced what he called the contradictory versions of
Seychellois police officers involved in the case.
At the symposium on Tuesday, Rama Valayden said an official
letter will be sent shortly to President James Michel to ask him to set up a
commission of enquiry to shed light on the death of Harmon Chellen.
Mr Chellen arrived in Seychelles on 13 August last year to
attend the graduation ceremony of the Seychelles Tourism Academy as its guest
of honour. On the day he was supposed to leave the country, Monday 18 August,
his body was found by fishermen in Port Glaud not far from L'Islette. The
police issued a statement on that same evening and attributed the death to
suicide.
It emerged that a woman who worked as chambermaid at the
Constance Ephelia hotel where Harmon Chellen was staying, had given a statement
to the police complaining of sexual abuse on the part of Mr Chellen. It was
said to be in this regard that the police detained him on the day of his
departure.
On that day, the police went to the hotel to ask Mr Chellen
to accompany them to the Port Glaud police station for questioning. The
chambermaid travelled in the same car as Mr Chellen.
The versions differ
about what happened after. According to the officer in charge of the station,
Mr Chellen was arrested but not detained in a cell because the police officers
found out that he was a VIP. He was left in the enquiry room from where he was
eventually said to have disappeared when he was left alone for ten minutes.
But a cleaner also told the court that she had seen Mr
Chellen in a nervous state outside the police station and that he had sought
her help to contact Flavien Joubert of the STA, adding that she did not help
him because she did not know him.
It is unclear at what time all of this happened but the
officer in charge of the police station said that after he discovered Mr
Chellen's disappearance, he went out to look for him until he received a phone
call on his mobile phone telling him Mr Chellen's body had been found in the
sea.
The prosecution has asked the police to provide telephone
records of the officer's mobile phone to verify his claims.
"When his body
was found, he had no shoes on but his socks were on. He had his trousers on but
no belt and he was shirtless", Mr Valayden told the symposium on Tuesday.
He claims that two commissions of enquiry were held in Seychelles in 2009 to
shed light on the deaths in custody of Morris Hoareau and Mervyn Pierre and
that it was found in both cases that their deaths were a result of police
action. "In both cases, the men's trousers had been kept on but their
belts removed, the shoes were removed but the socks kept on", Mr Valayden
said, explaining that it was a "procedure" of the Seychelles' police.
"But they tell you, expecting you to believe that a man
who could swim but who did not because of a skin problem, chose to take off his
belt and keep his trousers on, remove his shoes and keep his socks on and take
off his shirt to get in the sea to commit suicide. Then they tell you that even
though they looked three times, they could not recover Mr Chellen's
belongings", Rama Valayden said.
He also showed a
photo of Mr Chellen's body taken after his death to the audience. "There
were six holes in his right hip. But the medical examiner in Seychelles did not
see them when she did the autopsy", he claimed.
A counter autopsy was performed in Mauritius but the court
in Seychelles hasn't so far been able to question the medical examiner about
the inconsistencies. Last week, she was said to be out of the country while
earlier was too ill to attend the court proceedings.
Mr Valayden also pointed out that two blood samples taken
from Mr Chellen and tested by the same laboratory technician at the same
laboratory in Mauritius had yet yielded different results. The one sent by the
authorities in Seychelles showed Harmon Chellen to have 2mg of alcohol in 100
ml of blood whereas the one sent by the authorities in Mauritius contained no
alcohol.
The lawyer also denounced the lack of cooperation of the
hotel where Mr Chellen was staying, saying that although they had requested
copies of the CCTV cameras, when the time came for the hotel to submit them to
court, "we found out that they had deleted everything so we could not
verify what Mr Chellen was wearing when he left the hotel or whether or not he
came back to the hotel before he died."
Rama Valayden said though that it has been established that
during the time the chambermaid said she was being abused by Mr Chellen,
"the records at the hotel show he was on the phone with his family in
Mauritius. That phone call lasted 12 minutes".
Mauritius' former Foreign
Affairs Minister Arvin Boolell was also present at the symposium and he said
that he fully supported the Chellen's family's endeavour to seek the truth. He
recalled his meetings with Ministers Adam and Morgan last year and said they
had promised full support on the matter. "I believe Seychelles is a
country where the rule of law is upheld and where institutions are respected
and I hope President Michel will respond positively to the family's request
that a commission of enquiry is set up", he told the Mauritian press.
The President's prerogative
Section 2 of the
Commissions of Inquiry act says the following:
(1) The President
may, whenever he shall deem it advisable, issue a Commission appointing one or
more Commissioners to inquire into
(a) the conduct of any officer in the public service; or
(b) the conduct or management of any department of the
public service, or of any public or local institution; or
(c) any matter relating to the public service; or
(d) any matter of public interest or concern; or
(e) any matter in
which an inquiry would be for the public welfare.
Source: Today in Seychelles
