Family fears justice to be denied over death
A County Galway family has accused the Government of being afraid to stand up to the German authorities as they continue to seek answers regarding the death of a family member.
Members of the Fitzpatrick family in Portumna feel abandoned by the Government as they fight to have the case reopened. The family says that they have compelling evidence that Matthew Fitzpatrick (34) did not take his own life in Mannheim on December 11, 2010.
And this week the close-knit family have again called on the Department of Foreign Affairs to request the German authorities to reopen the investigation.
Doors have been closed on the family’s attempts to prove that Matthew did not commit suicide at his apartment. It has been an agonising four years for the family.
“All we want is justice for Matthew”, says his brother Patrick Fitzpatrick who has been at the coalface of a campaign to prove that their brother was actually murdered.
He said that his apparent suicide was staged and the family had evidence to prove that Matthew could not have physically taken his own life.
But the family has been hampered in their efforts to have the case reopened. The German authorities do not want to know. Neither does the Department of Foreign Affairs in this country, according to the family.
Matthew was a successful engineer working for a Cork based company with an office in Mannheim. He had intentions of moving to another location, perhaps America. His brother Patrick has been involved in constant discussions with politicians both here and in Germany in an effort to have Matthew’s case reopened.
Patrick said that there was no evidence that he took his own life and the family was furious that the German authorities or police could not see this.
And he revealed that there was a number of Matthew’s social circle who had been information about the circumstances surrounding his death in Mannheim who were not coming forward.
He said that even people he was close to in an Irish pub in Mannheim had not even expressed their sympathy following his death. His ex-girlfriend had also not contacted any family member. The family wants German authorities to re-open an investigation into his death and they want the Irish Government to help them.
Patrick Fitzpatrick said that his brother had 45 injuries to his body and a lot of these were of a defensive nature. People in an upstairs apartment heard an altercation below on the night prior to his body being found.
In particular, the family says they’ve never been given an explanation for a significant trauma on the back of Matthew’s head, and haemorrhaging on his lower back. Using information from the first autopsy, an analysis by the family suggests that it was physically impossible for Matthew to have hanged himself on the kitchen door in his apartment.
The Fitzpatrick family claims that German authorities ignored evidence and contradictory testimony, and even falsely attributed a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to Matthew, in order to support an early and consistent conclusion that he took his own life.
A Coroner’s Court jury in Dublin in April 2011 returned an open verdict on the question of whether or not suicide had been the cause of death. The family believes that someone close to Matthew knows exactly what happened to him. They have vowed to continue their fight for answers.