What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot through the ages - Stanley Baldwin, UK Prime Minister, 1931.
 
I thought I would start this paper with the aphorism most often quoted by our Prime Minister whenever he rages at perceived misreporting of the performance of his government by the newspapers. I believe he is wrong with his numerous attacks on the press, and one has to only look at the abysmally partisan performance of the MBC to realise the incongruity of his regular onslaughts on the rest of the media. Nevertheless, sometimes we are faced with reporting of such mind boggling inexactitude and callousness that one feels compelled to at least begin to understand Ramgoolam's overblown frustration with the work of some journalists. Such inaccuracy and irresponsibility is made much worse when the target is an ordinary member of the public and not some politician who knows which buttons to press in order to extricate himself from the many dens of iniquity that seem to attract such individuals.

On Tuesday 3^rd June 2008, we woke up to this lurid headline in l'Express: Un Mauricien inculpé pour fraude de Rs 500 millions, and I immediately thought that Teeren Appasamy had finally been extradited to answer the charges of offences that he allegedly committed in the last century. And then I cursed myself for being so naïve. In Paradise Island, rich people have their cases heard at least eight years after the alleged offence, and the chances are the Director of Public Prosecutions will then quash the whole charade by uttering the magic words, nolle prosequi, without even a word of explanation to justify his action. Ali Baba could have got away with murder if he had used those words instead of Open Sesame...

Anyway, the headline at least partly achieved its purpose, that of luring us to some salacious news about the misdemeanours of someone else so that we can all feel so pure and angelical by comparison…I thought a ten million pound sterling (Rs 500 millions) fraud would at the very least make the front page of the UK tabloids, especially as it involved a foreigner, so I checked all the online newspapers. Nothing. Not a zilch. Surely the British media can't have suddenly been cured of its obsession of linking crimes to foreigners? Could they? I thought I would wait until Wednesday when Abdul Satar Hamuth would appear in court to oppose an application for his extradition to the U.K. on charges of deception and money laundering.

The schedule of charges was read out in Court and comprised of 16 different charges during the period 10^th June 2004 to 12^th October 2004. Journalists were present and they must have heard that the money mentioned by the prosecution in the sixteen charges related to 3 separate cheques made out for £5,000, £ 32,000, £35,000 which had been apparently cashed by Hamuth and one of £ 128,000 which the bank had refused to honour. Even including the cheque that Hamuth could not cash, my poor grasp of maths tells me that the sum total of money that is central to this case is £200,000; and despite the rupee suffering from a certain amount of depreciation lately, I will generously over value one pound sterling as equivalent to sixty rupees. Therefore 60 x 200,000 = Rs 12 millions. Can someone therefore please explain how so many journalists became so inventive with this simple multiplication task and concluded that Hamuth stands accused of dishonestly obtaining Rs 500 millions? And why, armed with this ludicrous calculation that brings shame on our education system, they then manufactured the most grotesque headlines in order to callously portray a man as an expert fraudster who, let us remember for one moment, has not been found guilty of any crime yet? Journalists are still using the Rs 500 millions to blazon their headlines even when the real figures were put in the public domain at Court last Wednesday.

But it gets worse, much worse. This terrible gangster, 64 years old Abdul Satar Hamuth, who, according to the journalists is now Rs 500 millions richer, runs a small corner shop selling such luxury items like savat leponz and plastic goods to people who more often than not buy lor credi.

On Sunday 1^st June, an ordinary car screeched to a halt outside his shop at around 11 a.m. and four plain clothed individuals barged in; one of them flashed a card, claimed that they were CID officers, took Hamuth away, and shoved him in the car which then sped away. Nobody had time to react or to note the number plate. Hamuth's wife thought he had been kidnapped and the crowd that had now gathered called the police who responded immediately and led a search of the surrounding areas. One of the police jeeps even got stuck in the mud…Isn't it nice to know that in this Etat de Droit our forces of law and order can't even properly coordinate a simple arrest of a 64 year old man, resulting in the uniformed police trying to find their own detectives as suspects in what everyone present at the scene assumed was a case of kidnapping?

It is generally accepted that any application for extradition will have as its core principle the notion that there must be a prima facie case against the individual sought by the country making the application. But this is what happened during the application hearing at Court last Wednesday: the prosecutor, representing the Attorney General, claimed that the Court's duty was not to determine guilt but merely to approve the application for extradition. This raises the obvious point: if that is the case, why haven't we used that simple argument to extradite Teeren Appasamy from the UK? If all that the English courts require is an application, why can't the Mauritian authorities apply the same principle to our most notorious fugitive who has been enjoying the full freedom of the law in England for the last five years? Our 'learned friends' always talk about reciprocity, so why is the bar raised so low for our citizens who apparently enjoy no safeguards against any arbitrary application for extradition, whilst a mere application is deemed sufficient to haul one of us to face charges in the UK? Are Appasamy's human rights more precious than those that Hamuth ought to enjoy in our democracy? Perhaps Hamuth ought to adopt some imaginative tactic, like admitting himself into a clinic…

The Court was presented with some written evidence from the expert witnesses for the prosecution. As Hamuth is facing several charges of forging signatures on the four cheques, the evidence of the handwriting and documents expert employed by the UK Forensic Science Services could be considered by any reasonable person as conclusive of his guilt or innocence. He however concluded that it was impossible to assess the similarities and dissimilarities in the handwriting and that he found himself unable to determine whether or not they were in fact made by the alleged victim. That is the sum total of the evidence regarding nine of the sixteen charges relating to forged signatures against Hamuth.

The remaining charges relate to the allegation that Hamuth exploited the assertion that the victim suffered from Alzheimer's disease and therefore 'persuaded' him to sign those cheques. Again, the prosecution has provided the court with evidence that it purports comes from expert witnesses. Unfortunately, only one of these expert witnesses appear to be a fully accredited, registered member of either the Medical council, the nurses and midwifery council, or the register of chartered psychologists, and he has not even made any statements himself; he is merely quoted in someone else's report, and its probative value therefore has to be questionable. And that doctor only became a geriatrician in 2007 and therefore appears not to be qualified to have made the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in 2004 when the alleged offences occurred.

And how was the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease made anyway? By the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test, a 10 minute question and answer test used for screening cognitive function and which is NOT recognised as suitable for making a diagnosis by either the General Medical Council or the American Medical Association. As far as the scoring goes, this is what both medical bodies say:
"The maximum score on the MMSE is 30. In general, scores fall into four categories:
24 – 30: "normal" range
20 – 23: mild cognitive impairment or possible early-stage/mild Alzheimer's disease
10 – 19: middle-stage/moderate Alzheimer's disease
0 – 9: late-stage/severe Alzheimer's disease
 Although the MMSE and its scoring guidelines are useful, the MMSE shouldn't be used independently to make a diagnosis, nor should any other singular aspect of the diagnosis process.A diagnosis of Alzheimer's can only be made after a complete diagnostic workup rules out any other possible cause for the person's symptoms." In this case, it would appear that the diagnosis was wholly reached by the use of the MMSE test, and no PET,MRI, or CT scans were carried out on the alleged victim. Even the score achieved by the alleged victim on the flawed MMSE test was never less than 15 during the material times when the cheques had been signed and cashed, which would place him at worst in the 'moderate' category.

The Court will decide on the 10^th July whether to approve the application to extradite Hamuth to the UK, or will decide whether the evidence justifies the committal for trial if the act or omission constituting the crime alleged against Hamuth had taken place in or within the jurisdiction of Mauritius.

It is worth noting that the British police have taken four long years to investigate this, and the extremely thin file of evidence in support of this application for extradition is rather surprising… The decision to extradite Hamuth will be of course based solely on the evidence and not on any neo colonialist instinct to please the ex mother country, a weakness inherent in all extradition treaties between strong and weaker nations. It must also be pointed out that it is not a crime in English law for a nurse to receive money from his patient, notwithstanding the dubiously ethical aspects of the transaction.

Let me conclude this paper on the way the press has reported this case. Hamuth was arrested on Sunday the 1^st of June at 11 a.m. and one Sunday paper published presumably a few days before had already splashed the Rs 500 millions 'story' prominently, before the arrest was made! Who says our journalists and police force are short of inventiveness and cooperation when it suits them?

Irrespective of the outcome of the extradition proceedings, Hamuth will always be known to many people as the man who stole Rs 500 millions from the patient he was looking after. None of the journalists who wrote this damaging nonsense will show any shame or contrition for wantonly destroying the reputation of that elderly gentleman.

Perhaps editors will in future accept these words from Geoffrey Robertson, Q.C. when he recently proposed the appointment of a press ombudsman: Robertson defines a responsible press as a national collection of newspapers and magazines that generally abide by a code of conduct which ensured that they did not, for example, invade privacy or publish unchecked facts or distorted headlines or do any of the myriad things that constitute unethical behaviour. Responsible journalism and responsible editing involve making a series of checks on stories – in giving people who are to be attacked an opportunity to explain their actions and so on.

What those journalists did last week was thoroughly unethical and reprehensible: they published unchecked facts, and their scatological headlines were an absolute denial of the truth.

And the most dishonourable aspect of this shameful episode? They are still publishing the 'Rs 500 million' nonsense despite the evidence being now in the public domain; and despite some family members telling the journalists at court that they had got it wrong.

A harlot would never have behaved so irresponsibly.
 
R.A.J.
 
Email: servipei@yahoo.com

Related Article: Accusé d’avoir détourné Rs 500 M en Angleterre, Hamuth : «J’ai reçu ces biens pour services rendus»