Wed Jan 6 2010
By Henri Paget, ninemsn
Police are hunting a gang of construction workers who they believe bashed an Australian man to death with tree branches in Cambodia.
John Edward Thompson, 47, was found dead early last week near a construction site on a deserted road leading to the five-star Sokha hotel in Sihanoukville.
Staff from a kiosk at the construction site told police they saw a small group of labourers drinking together in the hours leading up to the late-night killing, the Phnom Penh Post reports.
Chrann Chamroeun, a journalist for the newspaper, told ninemsn the area where the NSW man was killed was a strange place for a foreigner to be at night.
"It's very quiet around that area ... police have said travelling there at night-time there is not safe."
Thompson had been in Cambodia for more than a year before his death and had reportedly owned a bar in Sihanoukville's popular nightspot Victory Hill.
Various Cambodian news reports have quoted police as saying he ran into debt with the bar and was homeless and living in a Buddhist pagoda before the murder.
Mr Chamroeun told ninemsn that Thompson's 22-year-old Cambodian girlfriend Van Lina said "he was carrying just 2000 riels (A$0.52) at the time of his death".
The deserted location of the murder has raised questions over what Thompson was doing on the road alone at the time.
Unconfirmed reports on Cambodian internet forums, including Sihanoukville Online, claim he was killed over long-standing debts.
Local police are reportedly unsure whether the killing was part of a robbery or an act of revenge.
"Earlier, police told me the suspects were involved with drugs," Mr Chamroeun said.
"I haven't been able to get any confirmation that he owed money."
The case has captured the attention of the Cambodian media, with one news website releasing a graphic photograph of the crime scene.
The Australian Embassy in Cambodia was unable to provide information on the killing when contacted last night.
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