THE MANAGER of the Bolivian hotel in which Irishman Michael Dwyer was shot dead by police last Thursday says that when he examined the rooms where the incident took place, all the bullet holes were inside the guests’ rooms.
Hernan Rossell and his lawyer are the only two people whom police have allowed up on to the fourth floor of the Hotel Las Americas in the eastern city of Santa Cruz since what the government said was a shoot-out with a group of mercenaries intent on assassinating President Evo Morales and destabilising the government.
“There was much blood and it is very marked by bullet holes,” says Rossell. “But all the bullet holes were inside the bedrooms. There are no signs of bullets fired from the rooms outwards.”
Many in the opposition stronghold of Santa Cruz have openly questioned the government and police’s version of events last Thursday.
Ramon Zurita, the night manager on duty when police raided the hotel at 4am, said that after securing the lobby elite police went up to the fourth floor.
“Next thing I heard was a huge explosion. The whole hotel vibrated. Then the sound of machine guns. It sounded like a rain of bullets.”
Zurita estimates that the gunfire lasted between 10 and 15 minutes.
Two other men died along with Dwyer – Eduardo Rózsa Flores, a Bolivian adventurer of Hungarian descent who held a Croatian passport, and Magyarosi Erpád, a Romanian of Hungarian ethnicity.
Mario Tadic, a Bolivian who like Rozsa Flores also held a Croatian passport, and Elod Toazo, a Hungarian, were taken prisoner and are being held in the capital La Paz.
Questioned by The Irish Times about the circumstances surrounding the death of Dwyer and his companions, Col Miguel Gonzales, the head of police special forces in Santa Cruz, would only say that the case is still being investigated and refused to provide details about what happened during the incident.
Asked on what evidence the country’s vice-president had based his claim that the men were involved in an assassination plot against the president, he said that the group’s motivations were still under investigation.
Dr Rafael Vargas, the forensic investigator who examined the bodies, said that Dwyer and Magyarosi Erpád each had six bullet wounds. Rozsa Flores had seven.
“All were in the region of the chest. We are still waiting on results from the forensic laboratory in La Paz about what angle and at what distance the shots were fired from,” he told The Irish Times.
“These should be released by the weekend.”
He also expected then the results of swabs taken from the hands of the three dead men. “This test will show whether they fired guns during the incident. This will be key in proving the police version that there was a confrontation,” Dr Vargas said.