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Paul Lismore

[Paul Lismore] Th vultures who remained silent for 8 long years are now saying, "well done, Stellio Antonio"


Rédigé par Paul Lismore le Vendredi 22 Janvier 2021

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."... Elie Wiesel.



Nothing about human nature ever surprises me. When the heat is on and you and your family are suffering, many will keep quiet. But as soon as you are found not guilty, the rats will crawl out of their holes and become your best friend again....

I wrote this in 2017 (unfortunately, it is no longer on Facebook, as FB used to block me quite often during those days, an addiction that seems to have now been cured...). The recent judgement validates everything that I wrote as factually correct. Well done, Stellio Antonio!

HOW CAN YOU BE CHARGED WITH A CRIME THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO COMMIT? ....AND YET, THIS IS WHAT STELLIO ANTONIO, EX JOURNALIST AT LE MAURICIEN, HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH SINCE 2013...AND THE ZOURLANUS, ZAVOKAS, AND ASSORTED ZOAVES PONTIFICATING ABOUT OUR ETAT DE DROIT ALL KEEP QUIET.

If committing crime was such an easy thing to do, we would all be at it, wouldn't we? We all know that it is far simpler to become a politician in Mauritius where the ability to steal at will from the public purse is apparently a prime requirement for the job.

There are some things you just cannot do, like breaking into Fort Knox, where the security is so immense that it is impossible to steal even a paper clip (unless you happen to be Goldfinger, but there again, James Bond will get you....). Or breaking into the National Lottery system, so that you can win the jackpot even if you claim to have lost the winning ticket. It is simply not done, the cardinal rule being no ticket=no prize. As Chief Operating Officer of the Lottery, Moorghen Veeramootoo, declared to the press "Nous avons clairement fait comprendre que sans ticket valide, il n’y a pas de paiement".

 And yet, this is what the police accused Stellio Antonio of doing after arresting him on the morning of 18th September 2013, and keeping him in custody for 5 nights. That was in 2013, and at the dawn of 2018, there is still no sign of the case coming up for trial, although a fair minded and independent DPP would have thrown this nonsense out a long time ago.

Let me put forward to you this scenario, which faithfully follows the facts of the case (most of the info comes from police sources...), and you can decide for yourselves whether this is a genuine case, or a scandalous failure of the criminal justice system to protect the citizens of this country.

A chap called Teemul Gokhool saw on the news that the jackpot winning lottery ticket for Rs 28.4 millions had still not been presented to the lottery people, so he decided that it would be a nice ploy to pretend that he had the winning ticket and therefore claim the big prize, despite saying that he had lost the ticket. He went to see the Lottery people at Ebene, and tried to convince them that he indeed had bought the winning lottery ticket but had lost it. He told them where he bought it (an easy thing to do, as in those days, the location of the shop that sold the ticket was aired to the public by the media soon after the numbers were called). He told them that he bought the ticket on the Friday, and further inquiries showed that that was a lie as the winning ticket had been bought on a Saturday!

Anyway, the lady in Support Division at Lotto contacted Stellio Antonio, the Public Affairs Manager at Lotto, who then spoke with Teemul Gokhool. Stellio tried to help him, after taking advice from the Security Manager at Lottotech, and advised him to go to the nearest police station. Gokhool explained to Stellio how he was depressed after he divorced his wife in the UK, that his 'la tete fatiguee', that he was having suicidal thoughts, etc. In his desire to help, Stellio visited Gokhool at his house to search for the ticket. The house was in a mess and clearly beyond the scope of Gokhool's invalid parents to look after properly. That was the ONLY time Stellio had visited Gokhool at home, and prior to this, he had never heard of the man.

The case was unexpectedly taken over by Chief Inspector Rajaram who then proceeded to charge both of them with conspiracy charges.

Chief Inspector Rajaram is very friendly with Daniel Monvoisin, and Stellio Antonio had written extensively about the incestuous relationship between bookmakers and the Police des Jeux, about surreptitious meetings between police officers and bookmakers at the back of Casernes near la boutique Yeye. Remember Jacques Bathilde, the ex police officer turned bookmaker, who was recently murdered in his house? He used to be in that crowd, as chief money collector from the bookmakers to be then split with other corrupt police officers...

Anyway, both Stellio Antonio and Teemul Gokhool were charged by the police in September 2013, and our wonderful judicial system has still not decided when the case will come up for trial. But it is the fate of the two defendants that perhaps gives a better indication of the intrinsically corrupt nature of our so called criminal justice system.

1/ Soon after being arrested and charged, Teemul Gokhool, was given a job in customer care at MT...and is still employed there despite the fact that he is facing criminal charges. Of course, the fact that he succumbed to the physical and psychological pressure of being in police custody which urged him to implicate Stellio Antonio is neither here nor there.....

2/ Stellio Antonio, a journalist at le mauricien for 27 years, was urged to resign by his then zavoka, Rama Valayden, who then washed his hands off the whole case...He remained unemployed for 9 months and has been working freelance ever since. His daughter, who used to work at Loreto college lost her job following an intervention by zavoka JB who told the college that it is not right that the daughter of someone who has spent time in prison (for 5 days, unconvicted, not even charged properly) should be teaching the kids...this from the mouth of a corrupt bastard prone to giving luxurious goods that belong to us as freebies to all sorts of parasites..

In other words, one defendant gets employed soon after being charged, whilst the other, a respectable man who has never been in trouble with the police, remains practically unemployed for over 4 years, has had to sell his house and is now living in rented accommodation, and had the traumatic experience of being asked by Sonoo, the head of the SBM at the time, to return his Rs 175,000 loan asap, when we all know how that bank has often written off the debts of the ugly bastards who happen to be his friends.

Perhaps Stellio Antonio's current predicament is due to his praiseworthy but rare habit of journalists in Mauritius to tread in dangerous waters. He has written about Bheenick, the ex head of the BoM, and his claim to have 'an effortless sense of superiority' which was largely funded by taxpayers' money; a hedonistic and extravagant lifestyle with lunch and dinner even on Sundays at the BoM and numerous missions with their extra juicy per diems, local and international contracts, etc. He also used to write about Daniel Monvoisin, chief of the Police des Jeux, and his apparent closeness to bookmakers. As I mentioned earlier, the officer in charge of this investigation is Rajaram, who is very close to Monvoisin...He also wrote about Bert Cunningham, the Customs chief who was made to leave Mauritius pretty sharpish because his investigations were getting too close to the Mafia.

So, to use the expression often used by our learned friends, Cui Bono?

In other words, for whose benefit was this non crime committed? Better still, Cui Prodest, i.e. whom does it profit. Certainly not Stellio Antonio as he has lost almost everything from trying to help out some depressive chap with a sob story. By the way, remember the case where a man's winning lottery ticket had remained in his pocket when his wife did some laundry? and how eventually, the DPP agreed that it was a genuine ticket despite 90% of it being illegible/destroyed, and allowed the chap to take his winnings? Guess who helped with that one? Yes, Stellio Antonio...but then that would be inconvenient evidence for the DPP to take into account , eh?

Finally, please consider the following points and ask yourself whether any crime has been committed or not:

1/ You cannot claim any money if you don't show the winning ticket. So, Stellio Antonio, who knows this as he was a senior manager at Lottotech, would be pretty stupid if he thought that he could bypass the system, don't you think?
2/ All that Teemul Gokhool had was the winning numbers, as told by TV/radio/the press and the name of the shop where the ticket was bought. And that is all he told the police, a piece of info which was available to all of us.
3/ Teemul Gokhool NEVER had the secret code, the shop code, the time the winning ticket was bought, or the bar code. So, it would have been impossible for him to claim his winnings. 

As the lady Sergeant apparently said at the time " sa missié ki ti vini la, li pas avocat li mais li meme chef CID. Lordre finne vine depi la haut pou arrete ou et pou ferme ou zordi. Ou donne en ti lenkette après ou alle la kaz et alle ou travay. Perna nanien la dans. Ene ti zaffaire sa et ou perna nanien a faire la dans. Missié Gokool finne faire ene erreur et li finne accepter. Li ti croire li finne gagne Loto et li to croire kikene finne cokin so ticket mais lheure ki li finne dire li finne jouer pas li sa. Ou conner ou ki l’heure ticket gagnant finne jouer...." 

The first line refers to Chief inspector Rajaram apparently besuited and carrying a briefcase and telling Stellio soon after his arrest that " JE suis Maitre Rajaram, avocat que votre famille a contacté pour vous représenter ici."

This case is so full of holes that fishermen are apparently going to patent it as a fishing net. Is it any surprise that on the numerous occasions the case has been mentioned in court since 2013, the police and the prosecution have failed to turn up? The police have never asked Stellio whether he gave the crucial info to Teemul Gokhool because they know he didn't. The police has sent the file to the DPP on 8th December 2014, and I seethed with anger when I heard these zavokas and ex judge claiming the other day that the police are always at fault with provisional charges or with the abuses in our justice system. Why has the DPP been sitting on his arse all this time?

Finally, to give you an idea of how inefficient our criminal justice system is, here is a copy of a letter from Miss Pyndiah, counsel at the DPP's office:

" You can rest assured that we are closely looking into the matter. Given the complexity of the case, enquiry is still on-going. As soon as the enquiry is completed this Office will tender its advice.I will be present in Court on 16th December 2014, to apprise the Court as to where matters currently stand.Thanking you for your patienceYours faithfullyMiss D PyndiahState Counsel"

Perhaps, someone could remind Miss Pyndiah that we are now a month away from 2017, and that patience is not an inexhaustible resource. But don't expect our zourlanus to even mention the plight of their ex colleague. They are too busy chasing the next underage girl who has wanted to experience the delights of some jig a jig too prematurely; or trying to grab the most graphically lurid pictures of fatal vehicle accidents; or showing their favourite politicians in the best possible light; or simply doing what many of them are so good at, writing crap; or, like Patrick Michel, having an orgasm every time he mentions 'Chairman Emeritus' in his crap, woefully biased articles.In the meantime, Stellio Antonio has lost almost everything from facing ludicrous charges about a crime that simply cannot be committed. Next time you see one of these knob heads talking about etat de droit, grab a dog turd and rub it in his/her face.

Vendredi 22 Janvier 2021

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