Africa-Press – Mauritius. The flashback below is purely factual and serves no interests whatsoever, be they of people or institutions in this country or abroad.
One or two legal opinions of the author, a senior barrister, economist, and investigator, will seep through as he goes along but will emerge into daylight by the end of the article.
At about 2.42 pm on 10 January 2011, Michaela McAreavey née Harte was killed at ‘Legends’, a 4-star hotel at Grand Gaube, Mauritius, now rebranded LUX Grand Gaube.
The crime took place while Michaela was honeymooning at the hotel with her husband John McAreavey. The cause of death, as per the death certificate issued by the relevant authority in Mauritius is “Strangulation”.
According to one report, Michaela’s body had been found gagged in her bathtub, with a towel or similar cloth between her teeth tied round her neck. The time span between the actual killing and the discovery of the body is approximately one hour, give or take a few seconds.
During this hour, about 25 individuals, identified or identifiable at the time, accessed the scene of crime. Most of them were hotel staff, from managers downward, but one non-staff person who entered the room was John McAreavey himself.
Michaela was born on 31 December 1983, which means she was 27 when she died. She was the daughter of Mickey and Maria Harte. She has two surviving brothers and a sister, who is married to a barrister who has been helping the family in its search for her killer/s in Mauritius.
As to Mickey McAreavey, the name may suggest a Scottish and therefore Protestant ancestry in the context of Irish history and politics, but Mickey is a born and bred Catholic and remains so, together with his wife Maria.
They sent their children to infant, primary and secondary schools territorially segregated as Northern Ireland remains to this day. Quite naturally they later channelled her to St Mary’s University College and Queen’s University, both of Belfast, where she obtained successive degrees.
When she landed to her death at ‘Legends’, she was a teacher at St Patrick’s Academy in Dungannon, Northern Ireland. The killing shocked the whole of Europe, as Mauritius had been known since Independence as a tourist hot-spot and for the emblematic kindness of its people.
But in the UK, more particularly Northern Ireland, the reaction was wrath, fuming wrath, and calls for revenge by retaliation against diminutive Mauritius through boycotts of our tourism and textiles.
At one stage the tremor was so high I had the feeling that our immigrants in Belfast must be worrying about their physical safety. The Sun and the Daily Express in London jumped on the Irish frenzy to instantly incite the English to cancel their holidays in Mauritius.
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