Family wants to re-open inquiry into Galway man’s death

The Minister for Foreign Affairs has been urged to back a Galway family’s efforts to force German authorities reopen the investigation into their 34 year brother’s death.

Galway Fine Gael Senator Michael Mullins has also sought the support of the Leader of the Seanad to have the inquiry reopened into the circumstances surrounding the death in Germany of Matthew Fitzpatrick from Portumna.

Matthew was found hanging in his flat on December 11 2010 – he was due to arrive home in Ireland for Christmas two days after his body was discovered in the apartment in Mannheim, where he worked as an interface engineer for a Cork-based company.

A post mortem was carried out in Germany after which the local police concluded his death was suicide – self-inflicted strangulation.

But his family – parents Donal and Eileen, sisters Anna, Laura, Mary, Elaine and Amanda and brothers Patrick, Danny and Stephen – ordered a second autopsy to be carried out on his repatriation to Ireland and, according to Senator Mullins, it revealed a number of discrepancies.

“The family had its suspicions and conducted its own inquiries and investigations. A second autopsy was conducted in Dublin on December 18 of that year when Matthew’s body was repatriated.

“It was carried out by the Deputy State Pathologist and raised several troubling questions which convinced the Fitzpatrick family that Matthew did not die by suicide but may have been the victim of a violent assault, given the range of injuries found on his body during the autopsy in Dublin,” he told the Upper House last week.

The Deputy State Pathologist identified numerous injuries to Matthew’s body including a blunt force injury to the back of his head and a deep injury to his lower back – injuries which were not revealed in the original post mortem.

Senator Mullins said the police investigators in Mannheim initially closed the case in December 2010 but, after much pressure from the Fitzpatrick family, the investigation was re-opened.

But last June, the Mannheim authorities said there was no reason to change their view of what happened to Matthew.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.