Girlfriend insists 'gentle man' was no mercenary
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Friday May 01 2009
THE devastated girlfriend of slain Irish man Michael Dwyer has rejected claims he was involved in plot to murder Bolivian president Evo Morales.
Mr Dwyer (24) and two other men were shot dead in a SWAT-style attack by Bolivian police last month.
The Tipperary man had been dating Brazilian medical student Rafaella Cotrin since Christmas.
"I loved him a lot. He was a very good person. He was a person with whom I wanted to share my life," she said in an emotional interview with the Bolivian Channel 11 television station.
Ms Cotrin said she saw nothing during their short relationship to corroborate claims by Bolivian authorities that he was a paid mercenary.
"I find it impossible to believe he was a terrorist. He was very kind and very gentle," she said.
"He spoke very little Spanish but I spoke English. He struck me as a very good person. He was very nice."
Ms Cotrin said Mr Dwyer told her he was an engineer who had found work in the country as a bodyguard for Eduardo Rozsa Flores (49), the Croatian citizen Bolivian authorities allege was the leader of the plot to kill Morales.
Mr Dwyer, Flores and Hungarian citizen Arpad Magyarosi all died in the police swoop at a hotel in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz on April 16.
"I met Mr Rozsa once at a bowling alley where I went with Michael. It was just the once. They seemed perfectly normal together. They didn't speak about anything out of the ordinary, anything different," said Ms Cotrin.
Suspicions
"I never had any suspicions about Michael. He always seemed to me to be a normal."
Mr Dwyer's girlfriend was not with him on the night he died and only learned of his death from a news report on TV.
"There was a piece on about an incident at the Hotel Las Americas and as I knew Michael was staying there, I started watching it to find out what had happened," she said.
"That's when I discovered Michael was dead and they were accusing him of all this terrorism. I couldn't believe it. For me the possibility he's involved in all this is something I find impossible."
Ms Cotrin said she had been in Mr Dwyer's hotel room and saw nothing to indicate he was involved in a murder plot.
"I didn't see any weapons," she said of his bedroom.
"And I don't know exactly what he did with his time when he wasn't with me because I didn't ask, but I know he was with Mr Rozsa a lot.
"I've nothing bad to say about him. He was a marvellous person. All the times we shared together were wonderful. That's how I want to remember him.
"I've tried to block out the picture of him I saw on television, of him lying dead in his underpants, which was very difficult for me. I think his death was unjust. All I hope is that Michael can now rest in peace."
- Shane Phelan
