POLICE IN MAURITIUS investigating the murder of Tyrone woman Michaela Harte have said they will not be announcing any charges resulting from their investigation until tomorrow morning at the earliest.
Though investigators on the Indian Ocean island had earlier said they had identified six suspects – and that they were confident that they could make a significant ‘breakthrough’ in the case by this afternoon – a police spokesman this evening told TheJournal.ie that the force would have no further details to offer on the investigation this evening.
Instead, the next details on the investigation into the murder of the Irish teacher (27) will come in a press communiqué, to be issued at 5am Irish time (9am local time) tomorrow morning.
Police remain on the scene and are continuing interviews with a number of suspects.
Earlier, the police chief leading the investigation, Superintendent Yusef Soopun, had confirmed that post-mortem results on Harte, the well-known daughter of Tyrone football manager Mickey Harte, had died from ‘asphyxia due to compression of the neck’.
She had been found in her bedroom by her husband, Down footballer John McAreavey, yesterday afternoon, after he became concerned when she failed to return from a visit to the room.
She had returned to room 1205 of the Hotel Legends to retrieve a packet of biscuits, Soopun said, which she had wanted to eat with a cup of tea. When police last commented, they had said they were pursuing the theory that Harte had disturbed an intruder; however, nothing had been taken from the couple’s room.
A reporter from the Mauritian service NewsNow earlier told Newstalk that the hotel’s secure card-access system showed that that the room had been accessed at 3:42pm, and again at 3:44pm.
Supt Soopun had also confirmed that a list of six potential suspects had been identified, and were being interviewed by police on the island.
The island’s tourism minister, Nandcoomar Bodha, told RTÉ Radio’s News at One that the murder marked the first time that an incident “like this has happened here”, and insisted that the island was safe for tourists.
Harte and McAreavey had only arrived on the island from Dubai on Saturday, and were due to remain there until next Sunday. They were on their honeymoon, having been married in Co Tyrone on Thursday December 30.
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