Gérard Hoarau

The British police have never solved his murder, but René government was highly implicated. As well as the hired hit-man, British police also believed that there was another individual—believed to be a Seychellois—who knew Hoarau and was able to identify him to the foreign assassin. Neither Hoarau's assassin nor his accomplice has been caught. British police did arrest a number for tapping Hoarau's telephone line, who were recommended to the Seychelles government by Ian Withers, who worked as a security adviser and was himself arrested in 2018.

On November 5, 1981 Hoarau checked into Nairobi's 680 Hotel whose manager, the Austrian-born Gerry Saurer, had previously managed the prestigious Pirates Arms Hotel in Seychelle’s Victoria City and whose clientele included billionaire arms-dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Hoarau was met by his fellow exile/assistant Paul Chow. The two stayed at 680 Hotel for three days and vanished. Kenyan journalists later reported that the two were in town on behalf of Mancham, who they wanted to restore to power with the help of UK, Zimbabwe and South African mercenaries with Kenya as part of the operation base. While in Nairobi, the two were also seen at the offices of SunBird Aviation at Wilson Airport where they booked a Beechcraft Super King Air 200, registration number N 821CA. Sunbird Aviation, now AirKenya, was owned by Andrew Cole (later Lord Enniskileen), a former managing director of Kenya Airways, and a close ally of then powerful Attorney General Charles Njonjo and then Police Commissioner, Ben Gethi. The aircraft was intended to ferry Mancham and a close circle of supporters from Mombasa to Seychelles after the unsuccessful coup attempt, the shadow-cabinet posing as American tourists. Hoarau would have assumed either the name SPC Bowman or Nescott. In 1982 the South African government cancelled his resident permit after an agreement by them and René on the release of South African mercenaries captured in Seychelles. One of René's conditions being that Hoarau would be expelled from South Africa.

Hoarau was targeted by the new regime. The targeting became more evident after the school children demonstration in October 1979 against the National Youth Service.

On 15 November 1979, Hoarau and 100 others were rounded up by the police and held incommunicado without charge or trial at the Union Vale Prison guarded by young Seychellois soldiers led by Tanzanian troops. When he was released nine months later, he was placed under house arrest until he was escorted by security police out of the country. Hoarau then moved to South Africa.

Gérard Hoarau (7 December 1950 – 29 November 1985) was an exiled opposition leader from Seychelles and was head of the Mouvement Pour La Resistance (MPR) that sought the peaceful overthrow of the France-Albert René regime which had come to power on 5 June 1977 in a coup d'état. The opposition was based in London. He was assassinated on 29 November 1985 by an unidentified gunman, on the doorstep of his home in Edgware, in North London.