The raid’s two survivors were flown to the highlands capital of La Paz and jailed without bail on terrorism charges after a closed hearing. They are Mario Tadic, a 51-year-old Bolivian-Croat comrade-in-arms of Rozsa from the Balkans, and Hungarian computer technician Elod Toaso.
Bolivian Defense Minister Walker San Miguel said Rozsa recruited Toaso, 28, through the Szekler Legion, a right-wing group that promotes autonomy for Romania’s ethnic Hungarians. Hungary’s ambassador, Matyas Jozsa, told reporters after visiting Toaso in jail that the former bank employee may not have understood what he was getting into.
He believes the slain men never had a chance to surrender and said Toaso saved himself by diving face-down to the floor and putting his hands on the back of his neck.
How Tadic survived is unclear.
The hotel’s manager, Hernan Rossell, told reporters he arrived on the scene 10 minutes after the shooting ended and saw Rozsa’s body on the floor, a revolver about 40cm from his right hand and a bullet wound in his face. It was the only weapon Rossell said he saw on the fourth floor not wielded by the police, none of whom were injured in the raid.
Julio Larrea, a police investigator, said the alleged mercenaries set off a C4 plastic explosives charge just before the shootout began. He said police recovered guns at the scene, though he didn’t specify how many or where, except that a handgun and a silencer were found in Rozsa’s room.
Authorities have offered no evidence that the slain men fired weapons. An autopsy done on Dwyer’s badly decomposed body in Ireland determined he was killed by a single gunshot to the chest, but apparently little more.
Many aspects of the case are still a mystery.
POSERS
On the day of the raid, Bolivian police confiscated about a dozen weapons at a convention center booth that they said the alleged assassins had rented through a local telecommunications company or a business fair. Prosecutor Marcelo Sosa later showed photos he said were found at the convention center booth of all the alleged mercenaries (not including Tadic) posing with guns. In one, Dwyer has a pistol in each hand.
Police also said the men were responsible for a dynamite blast the day before at the home of the local Roman Catholic cardinal in which nobody was hurt and minor damage incurred. They presented another man, Juan Carlos Gueder, who has been arrested on terrorism charges. Gueder told reporters he sold Rozsa a pistol and that Rozsa said he planned to assassinate Santa Cruz Governor Ruben Costas to make him “a martyr.”
Vice President Garcia said the alleged mercenaries were planning to kill him and Morales, then “organize civilian groups for an armed resistance to violently seize power.”
The evidence authorities have provided to date is a three-minute video that Sosa says was obtained from an informant. He says it shows the three slain men lamenting missing a chance to bomb a boat on which Morales held a Cabinet meeting in Lake Titicaca early last month.
The accompanying audio is unclear, however. Reporters who viewed it could make out words including “Titicaca,” “wetsuit” and “explosives” but no clear narrative.
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