THE PARENTS of Michael Dwyer, the man shot dead by police in Bolivia, say they hope an inquiry into the circumstances of his death will clear his name.
Martin and Caroline Dwyer said they had told Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin they “would like to have some answers”, in an interview with RTÉ news.
Mr Dwyer said he would welcome the establishment of an international panel to investigate the circumstances of what happened.
“Definitely yes. We spoke to Micheál Martin ourselves yesterday, he phoned. We said that to him, that we would like to have some answers, whatever they can come up with. I think it’s a good idea having the inquiry. Hopefully something will come out of it then and try and clear his name.”
Ms Dwyer dismissed as “absolutely ridiculous” suggestions that her son had been involved in a plot to kill the president of Bolivia.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. There’s no way Michael was ever involved in anything like that,” she said. She described her son as “an honest guy”.
Mr Dwyer said: “He just wouldn’t be capable . . . you’d need to be trained for that type of thing, but he wouldn’t have those sort of skills. I think anybody that knows him would know that as well; like there’s just no way he would be involved in anything like that.”
Mr Dwyer said he could be wrong but it looked like the incident was “all just staged, maybe not, I don’t know, but it looks like that”.
Ms Dwyer described her son as “fun-loving, always good natured, generous, always thinking of us”.
She said he always remembered important family occasions, and had called on his brother’s birthday and at Christmas.
“Before he left he bought us all Christmas presents because he knew he wasn’t going to be here for Christmas.”
Ms Dwyer said her son had been in contact by e-mail “and he seemed happy”.
She said he had told them he was “doing a bodyguard duty”.
Mr Dwyer said: “He said there was some wealthy guy out there he’d got in with. He didn’t elaborate any more after that as to who it was or anything.”
Mr Dwyer said he believed his son was simply interested in having a good time. He said his son had many friends.
“He made friends very easily and I think, I suppose, that’s probably the main thing that we’ll remember.”
He added: “What’s ever going to come out of it, whether we will ever get the truth?”
