Acquitted in 2016 of the murder of his partner Lee-Ann Palmarozza in Anahita, the South African businessman is now suing the Mauritian state for Rs 1.3 billion. Ten years after the events, he says he has never turned the page.
He speaks calmly, without raising his voice. Sitting in the lobby of the Le Labourdonnais hotel, at the Caudan Waterfront, Peter Wayne Roberts watches the comings and goings of passers-by. At 51, the South African businessman looks back on the last 12 years of his life. The wounds, he says, are still there.
For many, his name remains inseparable from an affair which hit the headlines in Mauritius. On December 29, 2014, Lee-Ann Palmarozza, his 35-year-old South African partner, was found dead in a swimming pool in Anahita, where the couple was spending the end of year holidays. Peter Wayne Roberts is arrested, then prosecuted. In 2016, after 15 months of preventive detention, he appeared before the Assize Court for “manslaughter”. The jury acquitted him (see below). “They tried to hold me responsible. But I was acquitted. » For him, everything is said.
Ten years after the events, two civil actions are still before the Supreme Court. The first, directed in particular against the Mauritian State and the police, demands Rs 1.3 billion. The second, against companies linked to the Anahita project, concerns Rs 136 million. Considerable amounts, which he refuses to present as the essential. “It’s a question of principle. The damages I am claiming reflect the losses I have suffered. »
The Court, he said, will be alone in determining whether his requests are well-founded. What he says he wants above all is responsibility. “People want to see action. They want to see accountability. »
Before 2014, Mauritius was much more than a destination for Peter Wayne Roberts. The story begins with his father, Managing Director of a major South African industrial group before creating his own company in the plastics sector. A business that led him to forge links with the island in 1987. Peter Wayne Roberts discovered it the following year, at the age of 14. “Mauritius was a different country. It’s impressive to see his evolution. »
After studying at the prestigious St John’s College in Johannesburg and then at university, he chose a path distinct from that of his father. Where the latter evolved in industry, he turned to the financial markets. “I studied commerce and always wanted to work in the stock market. » At a very young age, he joined a company specializing in stock trading in South Africa and gradually built his career in finance.
From the 2000s, Maurice took an increasing place in his life. Between 2002 and 2010, he spent between four and ten weeks there per year, mainly at Touessrok and Saint Géran. But these stays are not vacations. “In more than thirty years of career, I have never really taken a vacation. Wherever I go, I work. »
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