The evidence presented by the police against the businessman Danesh Ellayah was ‘weak’, concluded magistrate Warda Peerally Sayed-Hossen of the Court of Port-Louis in a ruling handed down on Thursday 25 April 2024. She severely criticized the police investigation.
Danesh Ellayah was provisionally charged in 2018 with conspiracy to defraud Sherry Singh, former CEO of Mauritius Telecom (MT), over an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud relating to a contract for 4K Smart Boxes. These charges were struck out by magistrate Peerally Sayed-Hossen.
She highlighted the weakness of the evidence presented by the police. She also noted that there had been no MT complaint in the case. In her ruling, she said, that it was arbitrary for the police to rely on the price at which Anglomobility sold the boxes to MT to suggest that there was reasonable suspicion against the suspect when MT had previously bought the boxes at approximately the same price.
The motion to strike out the provisional charge was made by Gavin Glover, Senior Counsel, and Yash Bhadain. They argued that the police lacked reasonable suspicion to charge their client on 01 September 2023. The prosecution, represented by Ronish Bangaroo, Senior State Counsel, opposed the motion.
However, the magistrate noted that if stronger evidence (…) against Danesh Ellayah comes to light, the prosecution is not barred from entering a main case against him.
