Peter Abrahams died of blunt-force trauma – police

A POST-MORTEM has revealed that internationally renowned journalist and novelist Peter Abrahams died from blunt-force trauma to the head, neck, and chest.

This disclosure by Assistant Commissioner of Police Ealan Powell came late yesterday after investigators revealed that Abrahams’ death is now being treated as murder.

The body of the 97-year-old South Africa-born journalist was found at his home in Red Hills, St Andrew, on January 18.

Powell, who heads the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Criminal Investigations Branch, said the injuries identified in the postmortem report were “consistent with someone being badgered”.

He said a team of investigators has been assembled to comb through evidence collected at Abrahams’ home to help identify a possible suspect.

Abrahams was an established journalist when he arrived in Kingston in 1956 to write a book about Jamaica for the British Colonial Office.

He had written for liberal publications like the Daily Worker and The Observer in England, and the New York Herald Tribune in the United States.

While in Jamaica, Abrahams worked with several entities, including Radio Jamaica.

Born in Johannesburg to an Ethiopian father and South African mother of mixed race, Abrahams fled his homeland in 1939 after the government charged him with treason.