KEY POINTS:
The parents of a Christchurch golfer killed in the United Arab Emirates 12 days ago have signed away their rights to an investigation into their son's death, in order to bring his body home straight away.
Aaron Mahoney, 24, was killed instantly when the police car he was travelling in crashed and overturned on Wednesday a week ago in Dubai.
Since the news broke, there has been much speculation surrounding the details of Mahoney's death.
Early media reports said the promising young golfer had been picked up drunk and misbehaving, and had attacked the driver of the police car, causing the vehicle to crash.
On Thursday the same newspaper claimed two of the policemen had been charged with manslaughter in relation to Mahoney's death.
But on Friday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade advised that Dubai police had said no such charges had been laid. Mahoney's parents Paul and Sabina said yesterday they weren't interested in the speculation - they just wanted to be able to give their son a fitting farewell. They said they had forgone an investigation for that reason. "We did it just to get him home. That's all we wanted," Mrs Mahoney said.
Mahoney's two uncles travelled to Dubai on Monday to bring his body back to New Zealand.
They flew into Auckland Airport on Friday night and returned to Christchurch yesterday.
Mr Mahoney told the Herald on Sunday last night that he had not had a chance to speak to the uncles.
He said: "They might know a bit of information. There's a lot of stuff out there that's just not true. All we're interested in is getting Aaron home, which we've done, and we're now focusing on giving him a send-off."
The family would not comment on whether Mahoney's body would lie at the family home until his funeral on Tuesday. The Mahoneys said it had been hard hearing reports of the "facts" of their son's death.
"There's been so many stories," Mr Mahoney said. "We don't want to feed into it. We don't have any definite information, and until we do, we're really not interested."
Mrs Mahoney said she had taken all media reports "with a grain of salt".
"When I read the report [about the police officers being charged with manslaughter] there were so many mistakes in it, so many inaccuracies," she said.
