A second autopsy in Canada on the late Arturo "Thunder" Gatti found that the Italian-Canadian boxer died by hanging, not strangling, the Montreal-based daily La Presse reported Saturday.
Gatti, a former world boxing champion, was found dead July 11 in an apartment he was renting with his family in the northern Brazilian city of Recife. He was 37.
Police initially arrested his Brazilian wife, Amanda Rodrigues, on suspicion of strangling him with her handbag strap as he slept following a drunken row.
Rodrigues maintained her innocence, and was released when a judge ruled that Gatti likely committed suicide.
But Gatti's relatives claimed there was a coverup, and shipped his remains to Montreal in August for a second autopsy.
According to the new postmortem examination, there were no injuries showing one or more other people could have hung the boxer, La Presse reported, without citing sources.
There was no sign that Gatti was tied up or beaten, although investigators did not rule out the possibility that the boxer could have been drugged and then hung -- "a difficult but not impossible operation," La Presse said.
Toxicologists found in Gatti's body a substance that causes drowsiness that is sold in Brazil but not in Canada.
Canadian specialists still need to contact their Brazilian counterparts to determine whether the amount of the product Gatti had taken was powerful enough to put him to sleep, the paper reported.
Gatti, born in Italy but raised in Montreal and a naturalized Canadian citizen, had lived in the United States with his wife and son.
He retired in 2007 with a record of 40-9 with 31 knockouts.
Gatti won the International Boxing Federation super featherweight title in 1995 and captured the World Boxing Council junior welterweight crown in 2004.
Copyright 2009  AFP American Edition
