Cambodian Police find Body of Missing Canadian Journalist David Walker

 

PHNOM PENH – David Walker a Canadian journalist, film maker and former member of a British Army anti-terrorist squad, who went missing in Cambodia ten weeks ago, has been found dead near the Gate of Death at the country’s ancient Angkor Wat.

The body of 57-year-old Canadian David Walker was discovered outside the temple by a passer-by who alerted police.

Although it has been impossible to tell from the state of the body exactly how David Walker died, a statement made on behalf of the family clearly implied he was murdered and called on whoever was responsible for his death be brought to justice.

Officials of the Australian Embassy, who represent Canadian interests in Cambodia, have been informed as have the Australian Federal as has the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok.

An Australian Federal Police officer is going to the scene to assist the Cambodian National Police and a pathologist is being called from Bangkok in nearby Thailand.

Walker’s body was found near the east gate, known both as the ‘Gate of Death’ and Victory Gate, shortly after dawn.

The ancient Khmer temple Angkor Wat is Cambodia’s biggest tourist attraction and was the major location for the Angela Jolie film ‘Tomb Raiders’.

Police will have to determine independent investigators suspicions that he died somewhere else and his body late dumped at the temple.

Walker from Edmonton, Alberta, speaks Khmer, Thai and German as well as English. He served with the British Army in Germany and later joined the controversial 14th Intelligence Company in Northern Ireland.

Members unit was later linked to the infamous attack by the UVF on the ‘Miami Showband’ and other loyalist bombings but Walker was not in the unit at the time.

After leaving the army he made his name as a screen-writer and ‘fixer’ for film and television companies including a documentary with the BBC’s Investigative journalist Sue Lloyd Roberts, and was also the co-author of a book ‘Hello My Big Big Honey’ about Thai bar girls’ relationships with their western boyfriend/clients.

Together with a Cambodian colleague Sonny Chhoun he ran a company in Cambodia called ‘Animist Farm Films’. They were making a film about the charitable works of a former Khmer Rouge soldier.

The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pol – Brother Number One – were responsible for Cambodia’s ‘Killing Fields’.

Walker had not been seen since leaving the Green Village Angkor Guest House in Siem Reap three kilometers away on February 14th. He left leaving everything in his room including his mobile phone telling the maid to make the room up while he went out.

The Canadian Government has been severely criticized by friends of Walker for doing nothing in his case. They claim that a consular official visited for 24 hours from Bangkok, refused to take charge of his possessions and left without even meeting his business partner Sonny Chhoun.

Tammy Wallbridge-Madden Walker’s cousin and only surviving relative said after being informed of the discovery: ‘The authorities must bring to justice whoever was responsible for this.’ – Daily Mail