Death of North Korean Doctors Working in Cambodia Remains Mysterious, Authorities Cite Alcohol Intoxication As Possible Cause
On Saturday, two North Korean doctors working in Cambodia allegedly became so drunk that their wives, also doctors, injected unknown liquid into their systems in order to counteract the alcohol. Both men died of heart attacks, reported The Washington Post on Monday.
The local police in Cambodia were allegedly called to respond to a location in Phnom Penh's Tuol Kork district on the night of the incident where they found the two dead North Korean doctors in their house, which also doubles as their clinic.
The doctors have been identified as 50-year-old Chol Ri Mun and 56-year-old An Hyong Chan.
"According to the autopsy report, the victims both died of a heart attack," said local police Chief Khan Khun Tith.
Reports noted that the two doctors were very much intoxicated by alcohol and had very high temperatures after they and their wives came home.
"After arriving home, we checked their conditions, and their temperature had reached 40 degrees Celsius, and their heartbeat was abnormal and their pulses abnormally weak," Tith quoted one of the wives as saying. "So we tried to save them by injecting medicine and serum to weaken the intoxication, but an hour later, they had a heart attack and died."
According to Phnom Penh Post on Monday, the incident was reported to the police hours after it happened, after the North Korean Embassy alerted the officials.
"We think the deaths might be suspicious because one of the victims had scratch marks on his chest and stomach," Tith noted on Sunday following an initial examination on the victims.
Just hours after Tith's statement, he announced that authorities were satisfied with the wife's explanation about the scratch marks found on the body of the diseased. The wife said they were self-inflicted by her husband after experiencing chest pain. The embassy's acceptance of the explanation concluded the case.
When reporters visited the clinic yesterday, four North Korean men allegedly shooed them away.
"We don't want any interviews with journalists," said one of the men.