Sun, Aug 02, 2009 page18

• Gatti’s body exhumed, details of night he died revealed

  • AP
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  Boxer Arturo Gatti’s body was exhumed on Friday to allow the Quebec coroner’s office to perform a new autopsy at his family’s request.

  The development comes a day after Brazilian police classified Gatti’s death as a suicide.

  Until Thursday, police in the northeastern Brazil city of Recife considered it a homicide, with his wife as the prime suspect. Now, police say Gatti hanged himself with a handbag strap from a staircase column more than 2.1m off the ground.

  Gilles Ethier, deputy chief coroner of the western part of Quebec Province, said Gatti’s family had retained a pathologist from the US who would assist with the autopsy yesterday morning at the Montreal morgue.

  “Clearly, it’s necessary for us to pursue the investigation,” Ethier said. “Of course, it’s a little more complex for the pathologist because the body has been embalmed.”

  Many of his friends and family have expressed disbelief at the suicide ruling and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement on Friday that government officials would seek more information from the Brazilian authorities on the Gatti investigation and its findings.

  Gatti’s wife, 23-year-old Amanda Rodrigues, was released on Thursday after being held since July 12 in Recife. She and Gatti arrived with their 10-month-old son a few days before in the resort town of Porto de Galinhas, where they rented a two-level apartment.

  Milena Saraiva, a Recife police spokeswoman, provided more information on Friday about Gatti’s death.

  Police ultimately concluded he hanged himself in the apartment early on July 11 from a wooden staircase column that was 2.1m off the ground. He stood on a stool and kicked it out from underneath him, police said. The autopsy report said Gatti was suspended for about three hours before his body fell to the floor.

  Rodrigues said she was sleeping with the couple’s son in an upstairs bedroom. She told police she went downstairs about 6am to get milk for the boy, saw Gatti’s body on the floor and assumed he was drunkenly sleeping. It was not until she went back downstairs at 9am that she discovered Gatti was dead and called police. Saraiva said no suicide note was found.

  “The first investigators to arrive at the scene only saw his body on the floor and the bloodied strap near his body,” Saraiva said. “They assumed his wife strangled him.”

  Saraiva said 17 witnesses told police the couple got into a loud fight on a street near the beach in Porto de Galinhas the night before Gatti died. Saraiva said Gatti had seven cans of beer, along with two bottles of wine, over the course of dinner and partying at a bar.

  Witnesses told police Gatti at one point picked up Rodrigues, who weighs about 45kg, by her chin with his right hand and tossed her to the ground.

  Saraiva said at that point a hotel security guard intervened, only to be punched in the face by Gatti. A small crowd that had gathered around the scene grew angry, with some throwing stones and even a bicycle at the boxer, the police spokeswoman said.

  One stone hit Gatti on the back of the head, causing a wound that police originally said was caused by a small steak knife that was found near his body.

  The fracas eventually broke up, with Gatti and Rodrigues returning to the apartment in separate taxis.
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