“For the record, once in the past, Leigh Day contacted us by telephone to share information about the rendering and torture of prisoners on or around Diego Garcia, long before it was confessed to by the British and US authorities. You can check us out on www.lalitmauritius.org using the little google browser on our site with the words “Chagos” or “Diego Garcia”.

“We write because we wondered whether it would be appropriate to make a request, through the relevant authorities, to the Mauritian judiciary to act. Should it not perhaps be the Supreme Court of Mauritius that accompanies you, as lawyers, to Diego Garcia to meet your clients being held there? And then the Supreme Court of Mauritius proceeds with a case, on the spot? This is how it used to work here.

“Chagos fell, and still falls, under the legal jurisdiction of Mauritius. The former Chief Justice the late Rajsoomer Lallah was one of the last to go to Diego Garcia to hear cases, for example, before Britain illegally detached Chagos from Mauritius. And now, since the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in 2019, as well as the binding ICJ judgement under the Convention of the Law of the Sea, as well as the UN General Assembly resolution, international law is clear: Mauritius has sovereignty. In fact, the British were ordered to leave. This would mean that their tenant, the USA military, must also leave. This is becoming ‘fact’. The UN has its new official maps published with Chagos as Mauritian. Britain’s Marine Protected Area around Chagos was declared illegal under the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, whereas before that, it was merely absurd, with nuclear and other military waste on Chagos. Even the Universal Postal union has pronounced BIOT stamps illegal. All this to say, the Supreme Court of Mauritius should perhaps be called upon publicly to assume its responsibility and to judge this horrific detention of innocent people whose boat broke down in Mauritian seas around the Chagos Archipelago.

“We can provide you with the details of how to contact the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who by serendipity, is also the Minister of Justice, Mr. Maneesh Gobin. We have contacted his secretary, who will be sending us the contact details that are most appropriate for you to use, given his two ‘hats’.”

Lindsey Collen

for LALIT