Family of Michael Dwyer visit court in Bolivia

Caroline Dwyer has met with the two men who were with her son Michael on the night he was shot dead by Bolivian police in April 2009.

Accompanied in Bolivia this week by her daughter Aisling, Mrs Dwyer was able to talk to Elod Toaso and Mario Tadic during a 3½ hour court hearing which was part of their trial on terrorism charges in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. During the conversation, Mr Toaso repeated his belief Mr Dwyer was taken alive from the hotel in which they were staying and killed at an airport in Santa Cruz.

Bolivian authorities have always claimed Mr Dwyer, Mr Toaso, Mr Tadic and two other men with them were terrorists intent on fomenting separatist violence in the region. They say Mr Dwyer was killed with two others while resisting arrest during a police raid on their hotel.

However, speaking to The Irish Times both Mr Toaso and Mr Tadic denied the group was involved in subversive activities or that there was a shoot-out that ended with their detention. They claimed the raid was staged to frame the political opposition in Bolivia.

Terrorism charges

Thirty-seven Bolivians linked to the opposition are being tried along with Mr Toaso and Mr Tadic on terrorism charges. Nineteen were in court on Monday and 18 others who fled the country are being tried in absentia.

Asked what Mr Dwyer was doing in Bolivia, both Mr Toaso and Mr Tadic were vague, saying they understood he was working for Eduardo Rozsa Flores, one of the men killed with him. They claim Mr Rozsa Flores was a businessman attempting to set up various ventures in his native city.

But, after his death, a video recorded before he left Europe for Bolivia emerged in which he said he was going to help defend the Santa Cruz region against the government of president Evo Morales.

“Anyway, the question is not what Michael was doing in Bolivia,” Mr Toaso said. “The question is why did they not arrest him and question him. Instead, they shot him.”

Evidence

The Dwyers are in Bolivia as part of the family’s campaign to have an international investigation into the circumstances surrounding their son’s killing. They have gathered evidence over the five years since the incident they say points to a summary execution.

The trip has received extensive coverage from local media. At the hearing, a former interior ministry official, now under arrest for extortion, told local media Mr Dwyer was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Called as a witness by the defence team, Boris Villegas was denied the right to address the court by the judge.

But before his removal he told the local El Deber newspaper that the police raid was a "massacre". "I apologise to the lady [Mrs Dwyer] for what happened and I want to have the opportunity to speak to her," Mr Villegas was quoted as saying. He is the second former senior official connected to the case to apologise to the Dwyers in recent months for the killing.

Mrs Dwyer and her daughter flew to La Paz yesterday hoping to meet government ministers and formally deliver a complaint about the killing along with their request that the Bolivian authorities allow an international investigation.

Bolivia’s government has always said it has not facilitated an outside investigation because it has never received a formal request for one from the families of the three men killed in the hotel raid.