[Mav]

Traces of heroin found on dead Aussie

Traces of heroin were found in the body of an Australian man who collapsed and died after a long drinking session in a Thai guesthouse bar in the northern city of Chiang Mai, police say.

Charles Clayton Burgess, 39, of Box Hill in New South Wales, was found dead on Monday beside American tourist Scott Ray Sturgess, 42, of San Diego, California.


The pair had been drinking heavily and police initially thought the pair had died from alcoholic poisoning.

But a police surgeon reported that heroin had been found in the nostrils and nasal tracts of the dead men.

Traces of the drug were also found on paper lying near the bodies at the Poombim beer bar and guesthouse owned by Burgess.

Burgess had been working in Chiang Mai as a trader, marketing souvenirs with his Thai wife. They were married in Thailand about a year ago.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Boonlert Jantanoodej said the two men had taken part in "a heavy drinking session" with other foreigners in the ground floor bar.

They are reported to have started drinking at lunchtime on Sunday and were last seen still imbibing together twelve hours later.

Early Monday a maid at the guesthouse found the men's bodies lying on the floor.

Chiang Mai is close to the Golden Triangle, the drug-producing region where the borders of Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, and the source of most of the heroin trafficked between the region and the rest of the world.