TRNUC hears one complainant in open session   The Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission yesterday heard, in its 234th hearing session, a case relating to victimisation.   Case 0362 - Steve Charly Samson |26 November 2021

In setting out his complaint, Steve Samson from Les Cannelles, Anse Royale, told the commission that he was targeted by the state for no reason including being accused as a killer, a thief, a rapist and a drug dealer.

To start off, he said that while working as a construction worker on the Four Season Hotel project in 2008, he was informed that Anti-Narcotics Bureau (ANB) officers were at his place along with some officers from the army.

He added that upon arriving at his place, the officers, some in masks and some unmasked, were already searching  all over the house where his wife and his son had been placed separately in different rooms.

He stated that he learned from his wife, who was handcuffed, that she was threatened at gun point and their sixteen-year-old son had been beaten.

He said initially he had no idea what they had come searching for until sometime later when he learned that they were searching for drugs which he was not involved in.

Mr Samson said that after the house search incident, the officers would occasionally storm his place of work looking for drugs and as a result his work contract was terminated.

He added that he joined the opposition as an activist and he was targeted by the state whereby he was locked up in relation to many incidents brought against him.

The 48-year-old stated that he was once accused of conspiring to bomb the Amusement Centre, Botanical Garden, Pirates Arms Hotel, Seychelles Petroleum Company (Seypec), Seypec oil tanks on St Anne among others, just because he was a professional rock blaster, a job he had to surrender because his license was not renewed until the practice using explosive was banned until today.

He further stated that the police would round him off every Thursday and put him in jail to be released every Monday. He noted that while in jail he would go on hunger strike.

Speaking on another incident, Mr Samson stated that he was accused for the shooting and killing of a Jeffery Annette, a National Guard militia, at Anse Royale, in 1997. He said he was arrested the following day of the incident at his place at Les Cannelles and put in jail at the Anse Royale police station.

He added that he was further transferred to the Central Police Station in Victoria. He said that his car was taken for DNA test because there was blood on the back seat which belonged to one of his workers who got injured working on the rocks.

Mr Samson said around that time, one of the president’s security personnel was shot and killed at La Misère and his car, which was supposed to be at the Anse Royale police station, was spotted in the area but luckily he was in jail.

He said that although he was in jail, some tried to frame him by placing his number plate, which was not the actual plate, at the crime scene.

He also alleged that he was accused of raping an elderly disabled lady to which a lady working at the Anse Royale petrol station testified that she was talking with him (Steve) at the station at the time of the incident. He added that he was never charged or brought to court in any of the cases brought against him including the bombing conspiracy.

Mr Samson explained that he presumed his life took a down turn following him coming from the National Youth Service (NYS) at the age of seventeen years, and was threatened at gun point by his father, who was in the army, to leave the house for reasons unknown to him. He added that he had to go and live with his cousin.  

He further added that his father was a different person before he joined the army and he presumed that he must have not liked that he (Steve) went to the NYS to which the entry document was signed by his mother as he (father) refused to sign it. He added that he got back on good terms with his father after he left the army. He said that his wife and children suffered the most during his ordeal.

Patrick Joubert