TWO PEOPLE were being questioned by gardaí following the recovery of a man’s body from the river Bandon, in Bandon, west Cork.
The two, a 37-year-old man from the Czech Republic and a 35-year-old woman from Kinsale, Co Cork, were arrested at 12.30am yesterday and questioned about a serious assault on 27-year-old Jonathan Duke in Bandon.
The couple were arrested under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act on suspicion of having committed an assault.
However, their questioning was suspended at Bandon Garda station shortly after their arrest until 8am yesterday when it resumed.
Mr Duke’s body was recovered from the river just 15 metres from Bandon Bridge and just metres from where witnesses noticed suspicious activity which they believed was somebody being thrown over a railing and into the river.
Gardaí confirmed last night that the postmortem examination by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster had revealed Mr Duke had suffered a violent death.
But the exact cause of death was not disclosed for operational reasons.
However, the investigation was looking at whether Mr Duke may have been already dead when his body was dumped in the river or whether he was still alive and died either after striking his head off a concrete footpath running under the bridge or died by drowning.
Gardaí are also investigating the discovery of an electric cable tied around Mr Duke’s neck.
They believe it was used to drag him downstairs from a flat in the building at St Finbarr’s Place after a row broke out there.
It is understood that Mr Duke also suffered an extensive wound to his back.
However, gardaí refused to comment last night as to whether the postmortem had confirmed he had been stabbed and slashed across the back with a broken bottle.
Meanwhile, a member of the Garda Technical Bureau travelled from Dublin to Bandon yesterday morning and began a forensic examination of the flat and stairs in the house, the path leading to the house and a pathway running along the river.
Originally from Deerpark on the western end of Bandon, Mr Duke, who has a young daughter, had previously lived in a flat in the building and two years ago had been the victim of an assault there when he was thrown out of an upstairs window.
Gardaí were yesterday carrying out door-to-door inquiries to see if anyone heard or saw any disturbance.
They were also checking CCTV footage and calling to pubs and off-licences to try and established who Mr Duke was socialising with on Sunday.
Informed sources in the town say the flat was well known as a place to go drinking and one man in his 30s told The Irish Timesthat he had got into a row there last week and had been thrown into the river but landed in the water and was able to make his way to the bank.
Last year another man died after a row broke out in the same flat but a postmortem was unable to prove conclusively that he died as a result of a blow being struck and no one was ever charged in connection with the death.
Gardaí have previously investigated incidents of people being thrown off Bandon Bridge and in February 2010, two west Cork men were jailed for two years and a third man received a suspended sentence after they attacked a 27-year-old Pole and threw him into the river.