Quebec Coroner seeking Gatti documents

TORONTO — The coroner’s office in Quebec wants Brazilian authorities to share their files from boxer Arturo Gatti’s initial autopsy and the police investigation into his death.

Genevieve Guilbault, a spokeswoman for the coroner’s office, said Monday that the office had asked Canada’s federal government to get involved and request documents from the first autopsy and other files describing the scene where Gatti was found.

Gatti’s death in Brazil on July 11 was ruled a suicide last week, after Brazilian police initially said the Canadian boxer and two-time world champion had been slain and that his wife, Amanda Rodrigues, was the prime suspect.

Gatti’s friends and relatives rejected that conclusion, and Quebec authorities completed a second autopsy on the boxer’s corpse Saturday.

Guilbault said a report on the second autopsy would not be issued until her office reviewed the Brazilian records.

“We’ll have to wait at least a few weeks before all the documents come in and the pathologists are able to complete their work,” Guilbault said.

Until Thursday, police in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife considered Gatti’s death a homicide and held Rodrigues in custody. Now, police say the boxer, who retired in 2007, hanged himself with a handbag strap from a staircase column at an upscale resort.

The second autopsy performed at the request of Gatti’s family has not ruled out homicide in his death, according to a pathologist who was hired by the family to witness Saturday’s procedure.

Michael Baden, the former chief pathologist for the New York state police and host of HBO cable TV show “Autopsy,” said that an autopsy performed by Quebec coroners found that the investigation by Brazilian authorities was incomplete.

Baden said there were injuries that Brazilian authorities missed and that Quebec pathologists need additional information, including a toxicology report.

In Brazil, Pernambuco state prosecutors office were examining all documents related to the case on Monday. A spokesman for the prosecutors office, which has the power to reopen the case, had no comment.

Milena Saraiva, spokeswoman for police in Recife who carried out the investigation, also had no comment, and Celso Avelino, Rodrigues’ lawyer, didn’t immediately return phone calls.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement Friday that government officials will seek more information from Brazilian authorities. A spokeswoman for the minister said there have been no new developments since then.

Gatti’s 23-year-old wife was released last week 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 an apartment.

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