IRISH MEPs are urging EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to support the Government’s demand for an independent inquiry into the killing of Irishman Michael Dwyer by Bolivian police last year.
MEPs pledged to sign a letter to Baroness Ashton, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, after Mr Dwyer’s mother addressed them at a meeting in the European Parliament.
The Bolivian authorities have claimed that Mr Dwyer – from Ballinderry, Co Tipperary – was involved in a plot by terrorist mercenaries to assassinate president Evo Morales, a claim his family strongly denies.
The letter to Baroness Ashton reflects an effort to escalate pressure on the Bolivian authorities given the logjam in the Government’s bilateral engagements with them.
Caroline Dwyer said she was grateful for significant support in her son’s case from Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin but said Ireland was a small country and was “practically irrelevant to a vast country on the other side of the world such as Bolivia”.
She told MEPs her son went to Bolivia to undertake a course in personal security, took work as a bodyguard and joked that his employer had more money than sense. She added that his Brazilian girlfriend, Rafaela Moreira, believed his “main downfall” was his non-existent Spanish.
“There have been written, spoken and recorded about what happened on April 16th, 2009. There have been lies, contradictions and comment which, I know, could not possibly reflect the actions or intentions of my son,” she said. “That he knowingly was part of a plot to kill the president of Bolivia astounds me. Our family, inclusive of Michael, has never taken but a passing interest in politics, even at a national level. Our kitchen-table talk centred more on football and hurling and family, rather than politics and world affairs.”
Mrs Dwyer was invited to the parliament by Labour MEP Alan Kelly. “This family need the truth . . . They just want to know what happened,” he said.
MEPs from Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil said at the meeting that all their parties’ representatives in the parliament were happy to sign the letter.
A draft of the letter to Baroness Ashton reflects the family’s concern that the local investigation was compromised, that there was no evidence of a shoot-out with police as alleged and that the Bolivian authorities have justified their actions by releasing information to media organisations.
“A statement indicating support for an independent investigation would be a powerful symbol that the EU is prepared to support the loved ones of citizens who have died in such tragic circumstances,” the draft stated.