A BARRISTER for a man cleared twice of links to the murder of Michaela McAreavey has hit out at “pressure” from Ireland which he says led to the rearrest.
Vikash Teeluckdharry said Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill is among those who pushed to reopen the case years after suspects walked free.
In 2022 cops in Mauritius arrested his client Dassen Narayanen and provisionally charged him with conspiring to obtain a master key to the room where the Co Tyrone newlywed was viciously killed.
That charge was struck out on Thursday as the judge slammed the investigation into the honeymoon murder, pointing out there was nothing new.
Mr Narayanen had been cleared of the same offence in 2013 two years after the 27-year-old teacher was strangled at the Legends Hotel in Mauritius.
Mr Teeluckdharry is now considering a number of legal avenues and plans to lodge formal complaints with Northern Ireland Attorney General Dame Brenda King and others.
He seeks to have his feelings noted that “a dim view” should be taken when a case “absent of new evidence” is opened “under pressure” from politicians from a separate jurisdiction.
The lawyer, who is also raising questions about the fitness of leading police figures on the island, said the relaunch has led to complex “tensions”.
Police relaunched the murder probe after high level international talks with then Deputy First Minister O’Neill and then First Minister Arlene Foster in 2021.
Speaking at the time the women said engagement with authorities in Mauritius, which included a visit from a government minister to Belfast, had led to “important progress.”
Mr Teeluckdharry said: “And then my client was arrested and there simply was no new evidence at all.
“These are things that should be looked at in a very dim light.”
Legendary former Tyrone GAA manager Mickey Harte’s daughter was married for just ten days when she was murdered after disturbing a burglary in her honeymoon suite.
Her husband John McAreavey found her body in the bath when he returned to the room.
Hotel cleaners Moonea and Avinash Treebhoowoon, 41, were acquitted of murder.
JUSTICE HOPES DASHED
And hopes of any conviction now seem further away than ever.
Former Down GAA star John McAreavey has pursued a long campaign for justice.
In 2017 he offered a two million Mauritian rupee (€50,000) reward for information leading to a successful conviction, but it has so far come to nothing.
