Jean-Hugues Cursley Duval was found dead in Saint-Brandon on November 8, 2023.
The judicial investigation opened by the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to elucidate the circumstances of the death of the 53-year-old fisherman, Jean-Hugues Cursley Duval, in St-Brandon, continued before magistrate Prashant Bissoon yesterday, at the Port-Louis court. Richard René, a fisherman from St-Brandon who had already testified at a previous hearing, was to be called to the witness box again. However, this key witness died on May 26, leaving a void in the legal process.
Furthermore, after the refusal of the police commissioner (CP), a request was sent to the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court for a trip to St-Brandon. The response of Chief Registrar is still awaited. The next hearing has been set for June 25.
Note that the CP had initially refused the DPP representative’s request for a trip to St-Brandon without providing a clear reason, as pointed out by the Court Manager during his testimony before the court of Port-Louis. Around twenty witnesses will be heard in the judicial investigation ordered by the DPP to establish the circumstances in which Jean-Hugues Cursley Duval died in St-Brandon on November 8. During his testimony, Jean Éric Jérôme Duval, Cursley Duval’s brother, was categorical that his brother had stopped taking drugs five years ago and that he had no health problems, thus calling into question the report of Forensic Science Laboratory who had reported the presence of narcotic substances in his blood. The DPP instituted this investigation at the request of the family of the deceased. The autopsy performed by Dr. Chamane initially concluded that death was caused by pulmonary edema. The Duval family is represented by Mᵉˢ Mahen Saulick and Yuveer Bandhu, while the DPP’s office is represented by Mᵉ Vignesh Ellayah.
