Phnom Penh police are investigating the apparent suicide of prominent expat dentist Dr Wolfgang Schmidtberg who apparently killed himself in his hospital bed this morning, after being hospitalised for colon cancer.
Dr Schmidtberg was found dead in his bed with a head wound after hospital staff at Son Sek International University Hospital heard a loud bang in his room around 5am this morning. A handgun was resting near his head.
According to a local police Dr Schmidtberg’s wife and brother-in-law have been brought in for questioning because it is understood that the deceased man asked his brother-in-law to bring the concealed weapon into the hospital this morning, subsquently chased them and hospital staff from the room and fired the shot into his temple.
Dr Schmidtberg is one of the most prominent expat dental surgeons in Cambodia and has been in the Kingdom since arriving here as an UNTAC staff member.
Obvious questions that will be raised from this incident include how it was possible for a revolver to be smuggled into a busy hospital in Phnom Penh, the legality of assisted suicide in Cambodia and the ethical considerations of local media publishing graphic death scene photographs of the deceased man’s body.