Investigation Raises Serious Questions Over 35 Prison Deaths Mauritius
Investigation Raises Serious Questions Over 35 Prison Deaths, Alleged Torture and Systemic Failures in Mauritius
Researchers call for disclosure of prison death records as evidence emerges of alleged police torture, suspicious deaths, corruption risks and serious institutional failures inside Mauritian detention facilities
A wide-ranging investigation into detention conditions in Mauritius has uncovered deeply concerning evidence of alleged torture and police violence, suspicious deaths in custody, systemic prison failures, corruption risks, inadequate medical and psychiatric care and a striking lack of transparency surrounding dozens of prisoner deaths.
At the centre of the investigation is an official figure disclosed by Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam in May 2026:
35 people died in Mauritian prisons between November 2024 and 14 May 2026.
According to information disclosed in Parliament, 24 deaths were classified as resulting from natural causes, seven involved hanging and four remained under investigation. In two prison deaths, foul play was reportedly suspected.
Yet despite the seriousness of these figures, no complete publicly accessible register has been identified showing who all 35 deceased prisoners were, when exactly they died, which prisons they were held in, their nationalities, their complete causes of death or the final outcome of the investigations into their deaths.
The investigation therefore raises a simple but urgent question:
Who were the 35 people who died in Mauritian prisons, and what happened to each of them?
At Least 39 Deaths Traceable Since November 2024
Further deaths were reported after the Government's reporting period ended on 14 May 2026.
Based on publicly available information, at least four additional prisoner deaths can be identified between late May and 7 August 2026.
This brings the demonstrable total for the wider period from November 2024 to 7 August 2026 to at least 39 prison deaths.
However, because the Mauritian authorities have not published a complete individual breakdown of the original 35 deaths, it remains impossible to establish precisely how many prisoners died during calendar year 2025 and how many died during 2026.
It is also impossible from currently available public records to determine how many of the deceased were foreign nationals.
At least one has been identified as a foreign prisoner: 83-year-old Kenyan national Nzomo Mbungo Navita, who died in June 2026 following hospitalisation.
Researchers stress that this does not establish that he was the only foreign prisoner to die. The nationalities of most of the deceased remain undisclosed.
UN Committee Raised Concerns Over Torture and Police Abuse
The investigation also examined findings of the United Nations Committee against Torture, which in 2025 expressed serious concerns regarding reports of torture, police violence, abuse, intimidation, inadequate medical documentation and weaknesses in the investigation of complaints in Mauritius.
Between April 2018 and February 2025, the Independent Police Complaints Commission received 4,674 complaints. A special complaint was made by a businessman in 2023 against CID officer Daniel Telvar.
The complete investigation emphasises that this figure does not represent 4,674 proven torture cases. It represents the total number of complaints received by the Commission.
Nevertheless, the UN Committee raised specific concerns about alleged intimidation, police interference with investigations and complainants withdrawing cases because of fear of reprisals.
The investigation also identified criminal proceedings and parliamentary records relating to police officers accused of violence and alleged torture.
In one case, a detainee alleged that he had been subjected to electrical shocks after being taken to a CID office.
Several police officers were subsequently arrested and investigated.
Prison Deaths Raising Forensic Questions
Several deaths examined during the investigation contain facts that warrant further independent scrutiny.
Caël Permes
Caël Permes, aged 29, died in the high-security La Bastille prison on 5 May 2020.
His post-mortem examination reportedly revealed multiple serious injuries.
Prison officers were subsequently arrested and provisionally accused in connection with his death.
The investigation was unable to locate a definitive publicly accessible final judicial outcome covering all officers reportedly involved.
Dyan Sawmy
The death of 32-year-old Dyan Swamy in May 2026 raises particularly serious forensic questions.
An initial Prison Service account reportedly emphasised his history of epilepsy and seizures.
A subsequent autopsy, however, identified a skull fracture and extradural haematoma.
The Major Crime Investigation Team subsequently investigated possible foul play.
The investigation does not conclude who caused the injury. It does, however, demonstrate why an initial explanation provided by the institution responsible for custody should never replace an independent forensic investigation.
John Mick Martingale
The circumstances surrounding the death of John Mick Martingale in Beau-Bassin Prison in September 2024 remain legally and forensically disputed.
An initial interpretation reportedly pointed towards hanging.
A South African forensic expert retained by the family subsequently challenged aspects of that interpretation and raised the possibility that foul play could not be excluded.
A judicial inquiry followed.
Andy Selmour
The violent death of Andy Selmour at Melrose Prison in December 2025 triggered a formal Board of Inquiry chaired by former Supreme Court judge Paul Lam Shang Leen.
The subsequent investigation went far beyond the circumstances of one prisoner's death.
According to findings disclosed by the Mauritian Government, the Board identified serious institutional weaknesses concerning prison staffing, discipline, management, drug trafficking, corruption allegations, emergency response, psychological support and prison oversight.
The findings raise the possibility that certain deaths and violent incidents cannot be understood purely as isolated events but must also be examined in the context of wider institutional failures.
Drugs, Corruption and Prison Security
One of the most troubling aspects of the investigation concerns the apparent presence of drugs and contraband within supposedly secure prisons.
The investigation identified reporting and official findings concerning alleged corruption, drug trafficking and possible collusion between prison personnel and prisoners.
This raises fundamental questions about prison governance:
How are drugs repeatedly entering secure detention facilities
Are prison employees involved?
What internal investigations have taken place?
How many officers have been suspended, prosecuted or dismissed?
Are criminal networks operating inside Mauritian prisons with assistance from individuals responsible for guarding them?
The available evidence does not justify accusing the entire Mauritius Prison Service of corruption.
It does, however, support serious concerns regarding recurring corruption risks and alleged staff-prisoner collusion requiring independent investigation.
“Natural Causes” Do Not End the Investigation
The classification of 24 of the 35 reported deaths as resulting from “natural causes” also requires greater scrutiny.
A natural medical cause of death does not necessarily establish that a death was unavoidable.
Questions may still exist concerning delayed medical intervention, failures to administer medication, inadequate observation, inadequate staffing, delayed hospital transfers or failures to respond to obvious deterioration.
The investigation therefore calls for publication not simply of headline causes of death, but of the underlying forensic and investigative findings.
A Major Transparency Gap
Researchers behind the investigation are calling on the Mauritian authorities to publish a complete register of deaths in prison custody covering at least 2025 and 2026.
For each deceased prisoner, the register should include:
- full name;
- age;
- nationality;
- detention status;
- prison;
- date and time of death;
- medical cause of death;
- post-mortem findings;
- toxicology results where relevant;
- whether CCTV footage exists;
- whether foul play was investigated;
- whether a judicial inquiry was opened;
- whether prison or police officers were investigated;
- whether disciplinary measures were imposed;
- the final outcome of the investigation.
The absence of this information prevents independent journalists, lawyers, families and human-rights organisations from establishing what actually happened.
Call to Investigative Journalists
This investigation should not be regarded as the conclusion of the matter.
It should be regarded as the beginning of a wider investigation.
Journalists in Mauritius and internationally are encouraged to examine:
the identities of all prisoners who died during 2025 and 2026;
the missing breakdown of the 35 prison deaths announced by the Prime Minister;
autopsy and toxicology reports;
the complete Andy Selmour Board of Inquiry report and its annexes;
the final judicial outcome in the Caël Permes case;
the Dyan Sawmy investigation;
the John Mick Martingale judicial inquiry;
complaints involving alleged police torture;
drug trafficking and corruption networks inside prisons;
the number and treatment of foreign prisoners who have died in Mauritian custody.
Families, former detainees, lawyers, prison employees, medical professionals and law-enforcement officers with direct information concerning these matters may hold evidence capable of answering questions that remain unresolved in the official public record.
A Question of State Accountability
The investigation does not conclude that every death in Mauritian custody resulted from abuse.
Nor does it conclude that every police or prison officer is involved in misconduct.
It does conclude that the combination of a significant number of deaths, documented allegations of police torture, suspicious individual cases, corruption concerns, systemic prison deficiencies and incomplete public information creates a compelling case for further independent investigation.
The fundamental principle is straightforward:
When the State removes a person's liberty, it assumes a heightened responsibility for that person's life, physical integrity and dignity.
Opening an investigation after a prisoner dies is not, by itself, accountability.
Accountability requires discovering what happened, preserving the evidence, identifying those responsible where wrongdoing occurred, publishing credible findings and implementing reforms capable of preventing the same failures from recurring.
The outstanding question is therefore not merely why so many people have died in Mauritian detention.
It is:
Who died, what happened to them, what did the authorities know — and has anyone ultimately been held accountable?
MEDIA & INVESTIGATIVE ENQUIRIES
Full research material and supporting source documentation can be made available to bona fide journalists, legal professionals and human-rights investigators upon request.
Press Contact: Foreign Prisoners contact@foreign-prisoners.com www.foreign-prisoners.com
Supporting material available includes: research findings, chronology of deaths and incidents, source register, parliamentary documentation, international human-rights findings and identified areas requiring further investigation.