From the sublime to the ridiculous

DR. GOVINDEN THE HOAX BOMBER REWARDED BY AIR SEYCHELLES

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Seychelles, Captain David Savy, was featured on prime time television last Wednesday evening, admitting unashamedly, that he rewarded a man with a seat on another Air Seychelles flight only a day after the man had caused a major security alert at the Mahe International Airport by falsely claiming there was a bomb on-board an Air Seychelles flight he was about to take.

According to state-controlled daily newspaper Seychelles Nation, whose reporter attended the press briefing given by the CEO of Air Seychelles on Tuesday, the airline graciously welcomed the culprit at its checking desk on Monday, the day after the incident, and checked him in to fly to Mauritius instead. According to Seychelles Nation, which quoted the airline’s chief security, the culprit “was calm when he and his baggage were thoroughly searched before boarding his Monday Air Seychelles flight to Mauritius.” He is supposed to have made the hoax last Sunday, as an attempt to delay the departure of the aircraft so that his wife would be able to deliver a jacket he had forgotten at home.

If this story sounds bizarre to you, you are not alone in thinking of it this way. If you thought, that the whole episode was some kind of a belated April Fool’s joke you would be wrong. The incident last Sunday, was a very serious one, which, not only disrupted the departure schedule of the airline, but also caused a major security alert at a sensitive area of an international airport.

The incident, which took place last Sunday, was reported to this newspaper shortly after it happened, although we could not get any details then. It involved Dr Philip Govinden, a paediatrician working at Victoria Hospital, who had checked in his luggage and been given his boarding pass for flight HM 1061 bound for Johannesburg South Africa, as a fare paying passenger. The flight was being operated by Nationwide Airline Boeing 727 chartered to Air Seychelles.

We were, however, able to establish that, after all the passengers had boarded the aircraft, Dr Govinden had yet to go through immigration and security checks to the departure lounge. When asked why he was not boarding the aircraft Dr Govinden is reported to have claimed that there was a bomb on Board. According to Seychelles Nation, “The airline’s ground crew immediately notified airport security officials who arrested the man who was later detained by the police.” Seychelles Nation also quotes the Air Seychelles security officer, Sabry Khan, as saying that “all passengers were asked to disembark, and a thorough search of the passengers, aircraft and luggage was carried out.”

The security alert, judging from the reporting on the state broadcasting media, involved just the airline security not the country’s own security apparatus set up to deal with such an incident. That, it appears does not exist. The incident as reported by the CEO of our national airline on television raises serious questions and indicates that our country has not put in place a credible response system to deal with a major crisis such as a terrorist incident. On the other hand, the security services of Seychelles has a tried and tested response system to deal with a handful of politically motivated persons gathered on the prescient of the National Assembly in order to sign a petition.

According to the state broadcasting media as well as the government controlled Seychelles Nation, “The doctor was still able to leave the country for Mauritius on Monday “because Air Seychelles had to respect existing laws, which Capt Savy called upon parliamentarians to review.” It is not clear from this quotation whether the CEO of Air Seychelles – who is also a senior officer in the Seychelles People’s Defence Forces (SPDF), whether the law compels him to accept a hoaxer on board his aircraft or whether there is no law in Seychelles to punish a hoaxer.

This begs the question as to when did Captain Savy know that there was no law to punish those guilty of such a hoax. Was it after the incident? Was it on Monday? Why did the police arrest Dr Govinden in the first place on Sunday and on what suspicion if he had clearly broken no law? Dr Govinden is a personality who is quite well known in Seychelles, did Air Seychelles ground staff really think he had turned into a terrorist. Surely, disrupting the schedule of an airline, even if done as a hoax, is a criminal offence in any civilised society.

This incident, although relegated to a candid camera or Mr Bean episode, is more serious than that. It is serious because it shows that the security services in Seychelles do not have a system in place to deal with a serious incident of terrorism, aircraft hijacking or bombing. This was not just an issue of security on an airline. It is not enough to sit back and claim, since there was no bomb on board the plane, it was not a serious incident. Should there have been a bomb, which security agency would have been responsible to deal with the matter? Certainly not Air Seychelles?

Captain Savy may be a serving officer of the SPDF, surely, he is not the security agency that deals with terrorist incidents, hoaxes or not. Then again, this may just be the case under the legacy of the one-party state where the security of the state was synonymous with the personal security of the leaders of the ruling party, the SPPF.