Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Lawlor questions

There are a few questions about Liam Lawlor's death that still have me wondering. Such as:
  • What year and model was the Mercedes he was traveling in when he died? Was he wearing a seat belt? Did the car have air bags and, if yes, did they deploy?

  • Why was he in the front seat sitting next to someone he'd presumably just met and couldn't speak to while his interpreter rode in the back? I've traveled on business before, with men and women, and I can't ever remember traveling in the front while my colleague was in the back or vice versa. It's not a biggie, but still it's curious. Usually when you arrive at the airport and get in a taxi or car service you'll engage in some small talk about the day's events or the next day's schedule.

  • Leaving aside the Observer's claim about the teenage prostitute, what about the other claims - that Lawlor visited brothels and sex clubs when in Prague or the far more damning "Lawlor was suspected of recycling cash for criminals into property across western Dublin and latterly into eastern Europe". The Observer has admitted it "erred", according to today's Irish Times. Is this related only to the bit about the woman in the car with Lawlor or the whole article?

  • How did the Guardian's Moscow correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, get it so wrong? He's been there for years. Surely he speaks the language and knows the geography, so it can't be simple confusion.

  • Does the timeline make sense? The Irish Times says he died shortly after 1am not long after arriving in Moscow. There is only one direct flight from Prague that Lawlor could have been on and that's Aeroflot's SU0144 scheduled to arrive at 1:05am local time. Is it possible for the plane to land at 1:05 and Lawlor to die where he did "shortly after 1am"? The road on which the crash occurred is the road from the airport to the city center. Without any real knowledge of the geography, this sounds possible since we can assume that at 1am he was able to get off the plane and out of the airport quickly.