Morales assassins: Bolivia gang "fought in Balkans"

[Jan Klimkowski]

The family of an Irishman gunned down in Bolivia after an alleged assassination attempt on the president was foiled, say they do not believe he could have been involved in such a plot.

Bolivian forces killed Tipperary man Michael Dwyer (24) in Santa Cruz on Thursday, along with two others they allege were about to kill president Evo Morales.

But many Bolivians believe the group are the latest victims of a government stunt aimed at building Morales's support, and that he orchestrated the deaths in an unfounded claim that there was an assassination attempt against him.

Speaking from their home in Brocka, Ballinderry, Co Tipperary, Michael's stunned parents Martin and Caroline say they can make no sense of their son's apparent death.

"There is no way he would have been involved in anything like this," said Martin.

"Six months ago he was in college in Galway Mayo Institute of Technology. For something like this to happen, I just can't get my head around it," he added.

Michael's distraught mother, Caroline, added: "He was my baby. I don't believe any of this. Nothing they say makes sense."

An Irish diplomat was today on his way to Bolivia and the Department of Foreign Affairs has been in contact with his family to offer consular help.

Martin is understood to have left college after graduating from construction studies in GMIT six months ago.

Not being able to find work in his chosen field he ended up doing security in Galway before moving to Bolivia in October.

He phoned home from there in February to tell his parents he was staying on with the security firm he was working with until the end of the year.

But Bolivian police surrounded the Hotel de las Americas at 4.30am on Thursday, saying they were tipped off about armed men there.

And in an armed confrontation the suspects allegedly fled, blowing out windows in the complex with a grenade.

The three men killed were named as Dwyer, Eduardo Rosza Flores and Magyarosi Arpak. Another man was arrested.

It was claimed the group had been monitored until it launched a dynamite attack at the house of Cardinal Julio Terrazas in Santa Cruz last Wednesday.

Police say they seized weapons, computers storing information of city plans and a list of possible targets.

The government claim the group next planned to target the president, vice president and other officials.

But opposition leader Ruben Costas has alleged the killings were planned by Morales, who he says has previously declared a number of similar assassination attempts without providing any proof of them.

On Michael Dwyer's bebo page he is portrayed as a man with an obsession for guns and weapons, and in an online quiz on the site called 'which assassin are you?' he is decribed as being most like The Jackal, with his military position as a sniper.

He lists his favourite sports as kickboxing, pistol shooting and airsoft -- a game involving realistic looking weapons that fire small soft pellets instead of bullets.

He posted many pictures of himself on the site with such airsoft guns, as well as a picture of his latest distinctive tattoo on his left arm, the same tattoo that appears in photographs from the morgue in Bolivia allegedly showing Dwyer and his accomplices.

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