Apologies and recriminations

THE widow of Liam Lawlor was last night considering apologies from two senior executives of the newspaper that published the most prominent false account of her husband’s death amid public furore at reports he died in the company of a teenage prostitute.

Sunday Independent editor Aengus Fanning issued a public statement apologising “unreservedly” for the “pain and distress” coverage of the former politician’s death had caused his family.

Mr Fanning’s statement followed an earlier pledge on radio by the paper’s managing editor, Michael Denieffe, that he would begin an immediate internal inquiry into the way the story was handled.

“We deeply regret the distress which has been caused,” Mr Denieffe said. “We are definitely going to put procedures in place to ensure that this will never happen again.”

Mr Denieffe said Hazel Lawlor and her surviving family would be approached about receiving a private visit from representatives of the company to allow them apologise in person.

A family spokesperson said last night they did not want to comment further at this time but a sister of Ms Lawlor said earlier in the day that apologies were “too little, too late” to make any real difference.

The family’s immediate concerns today are securing the return of Mr Lawlor’s remains from Moscow where he had been on a business trip and where a routine post mortem was conducted yesterday.

His office said details of the return and funeral arrangements should be known later today but it already appears unlikely that the one-time Fianna Fáil TD will be bid a final farewell by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, or the other main party leaders, all of whom have placed doubts over their availability to attend.

The sole survivor of the car accident in which Mr Lawlor died, 32-year-old trilingual translator and legal secretary Julia Kushnir, returned to her home in Prague yesterday where she was said to be traumatised by the tragedy and the false allegations that she was a prostitute. Some legal sources said last night Ms Kushnir could have grounds for a defamation case in Ireland despite the fact that she resides abroad, given that much of her work is with Irish investors.

The mother of one, who was known and well-regarded by the Lawlor family, is expected to issue a statement clarifying her situation today.

Department of Foreign Affairs sources, meanwhile, clarified suggestions that Mr Lawlor was a regular visitor to Moscow. The 61-year-old had been issued his current passport in 2002 and this was his first trip to Russia since then.

The source insisted that no journalist or newspaper had sought help from the department in verifying the remarks of a Moscow police officer that Mr Lawlor was travelling with a prostitute.

This contrasts with the statement of Mr Denieffe who said: “I understand that every effort was made to check through the embassy and Foreign Affairs as to the background to the accident and they were not able to elicit any further information.”

The controversy has prompted renewed cross-party calls for the establishment of a press council to deal with complaints about newspaper reporting. Mr Ahern said it appeared newspapers were on a “race to the bottom” where reporting standards were concerned.

The Observer newspaper, which also published the prostitute claims and whose reporter in Russia, Nick Paton-Walsh, supplied the remarks of the Moscow police officer to the Sunday Independent, was unrepentant. “Our story reported accurately and in good faith comments made by the Moscow police. We have not received a complaint about the story, or been made aware of any evidence which contradicts it.”