Two Brazilian men who were staying in the same Bolivian hotel as Tipperary man Michael Dwyer on the night Dwyer was shot dead by police in April 2009 have emerged to contradict the authorities' version of events.
Speaking for the first time about their experience, they told The Irish Times there was no shootout as claimed by police and have corroborated existing evidence raising the prospect that the scene was subsequently tampered with to sustain the thesis of a gunfight.
Dwyer (24) and two other men were killed during the police operation, while the remaining two members of their group were arrested. They were released and left Bolivia earlier this year after a plea bargain agreement.
Shooting
The Brazilians, an engineer and a mechanic, were sharing a room across an atrium from where Dwyer and the four other men were staying. They said the police were in control of the hotel during the entire operation and they were ordered by an armed officer to lie on their room floor before the shooting started.
In Bolivia on a business trip, their presence at the scene was not previously public knowledge. Hotel management have confirmed that the two men were guests on the night in question.
They were never interviewed by the Bolivian public prosecutor charged with establishing the facts in relation to what happened on the night. Contacted by The Irish Times, the prosecutor said he was never told of the men's existence.
