Family reactionNiall Lawlor (35) emerged from a meeting in New York last Friday and talked to his father by phone as he made his way to Prague airport to fly to Moscow. It was the last time he ever spoke to him.
As Liam Lawlor was driven from the airport to the city, the car he was in went out of control and he was killed, along with the driver.
"I have just been driven in along the route he took," Niall Lawlor told The Irish Times last night.
"I passed the accident site. It didn't look like any red light district. It is surrounded by malls."
He said it was hard to fly to Moscow in such tragic circumstances. But when he saw the coverage of his father's death in some Sunday newspapers yesterday, "I just couldn't believe it".
He was referring to reports, in some Sunday newspapers, claiming that Mr Lawlor's accident had taken place in a red-light district, and that the woman in the car had been a teenager and likely to be a prostitute. The accident site is on an exceptionally wide highway, Leningrad Shoose, that runs from Moscow's Shermetyevo airport right into the city centre.
On each side of the highway are new malls and major retail outlets including Ikea, as well as others under construction.
Niall Lawlor and another family member landed at Shermetyevo late last night and they were driven to the city centre by Irish Embassy staff. Having only recently landed, he said, he still only had scant details.
However, he did know, he said, that the woman in the car in which his father was killed was a 32-year-old legal assistant.
"She was the assistant to the partner in a law firm that Dad did business with. She has fluent Russian, fluent Czech and is conversant in English."
She has two children.
It is understood that Irish embassy staff have spoken to this woman and she has told them that she travelled to Moscow from Prague with Mr Lawlor on Friday night, arriving just after midnight on Saturday.
Though unhurt the woman is "in an awful state" and wants to be kept out of it, he said.
"I am sitting here at a desk and I am looking at my Dad's passport. It is stamped showing he entered Russia just after midnight."
The accident took place shortly afterwards. He said his father had gone to Moscow to try to complete a property deal.
He wanted to acquire two buildings that were adjacent to a building he controls. He had arrived to try to negotiate the deal. He said he hoped to receive more details of the accident from Moscow police today.