Ex-boxing champ Trevor Berbick killed in Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Oct 28 (Reuters) Former world heavyweight boxing champion Trevor Berbick was killed in Jamaica today by an assailant wielding a hatchet or machete, police said.

He was the last boxer to beat the legendary Muhammad Ali in 1981 and held the world heavyweight title briefly in 1986 before losing it to Mike Tyson.

Berbick, 51, suffered a gaping head wound in the attack in his native Norwich village, 146 miles (91 km) east of Kingston, and was pronounced dead at the Port Antonio Hospital, police said. They said the assailant was carrying a weapon such as a machete or hatchet that cut a deep ''chop wound.'' Friends said they had seen Berbick at a party yesterday night but police said they had few other details on his death.

Berbick represented Jamaica at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and settled in Canada for years. He turned professional the following year and won the World Boxing Council heavyweight title in 1986, when he defeated American Pinklon Thomas.

Berbick returned to Jamaica in 2003 after being deported from the United States, where he had several run-ins with the law and served a prison sentence.

Jamaica has been fighting a surge in murders and crime that threatens the Caribbean island's crucial tourist trade and is believed to be drug-related.

REUTERS PB HT2340