B.C. man died in motorcycle crash: Cambodian police [-Was he even a humanitarian worker?]

Monday, February 02, 2009
Doug Ward and Bethany Lindsay, Canwest News Service
Vancouver Sun (Canada)

VANCOUVER -- Cambodian police officials say a B.C. humanitarian worker died of injuries from a motorcycle crash - not the violent robbery previously reported.

Cambodian authorities say Jiri Zivny was fatally injured after a moped motorcycle he was riding collided with another moped.

Mr. Zivny died Jan. 15 after being injured in the coastal resort town of Sihanoukville, where he was vacationing after doing aid work in Vietnam for the International Hope Society.

Officials from the society, based in the B.C. Interior city of Kamloops, have said Mr. Zivny, 46, died from injuries he suffered after being clubbed on the head by assailants who stole his cash and clothes and left him in a coma.

This version of events has been disputed by Sboang Sarath, the Sihanoukville governor.

"I want the [Canadian] websites to review the case and correct it, since it contaminates Cambodia's fame," Mr. Sarath told the Cambodia Daily newspaper in Khmer, the native language of Cambodia.

Cambodian police have even produced a witness to the crash. Teing Ngeoun, 24, claimed to be a passenger of the moped that collided with Mr.. Zivny's moped.

Ket Sopheak, chief of Sihanoukville's traffic police, has said he considers the case closed.

Mr. Zivny's colleagues at the International Hope Society said their understanding of his injuries came from Reid Sheftall, an American doctor who treated Mr. Zivny at a hospital in the capital city of Phnom Penh.

Monty Aldoff, a friend of Mr. Zivney's, said Mr. Sheftall told the society he believed Mr. Zivny had been beaten and his injuries did not appear to be from a motor vehicle collision.

But a recent article in Asia Sentinel, a web-based publication, carried interviews with other doctors who backed the Cambodian police's view of Mr. Zivny's death.

"His injuries were not unlike those of other motorbike accident victims," said Dr. Phak Dararith, in the Sentinel article.

"The swelling was internal," he said. There were no bruises or lacerations on his head that would indicate he had been struck by an assailant, he and other doctors at the hospital said.

The confusion over Mr. Zivny's death has left some of his friends wondering if they will ever find out what happened.

"No truth will ever come from this. It will remain a mystery forever," said Mr. Aldoff.

Lisa Monette, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, declined to discuss any details of Mr. Zivny's death, citing federal privacy legislation.

"We continue to give support to the family and are in contact with the local authorities who are responsible for the investigation," said Ms. Monette.

Was It Robbery or an Accident?

Was Jerry Zivny really an aid worker killed in a robbery or a drunk sex tourist injured in a motorcycle accident?

January 27, 2009
By Melissa Lampman
Kamloops This Week (Canada)

Questions raised in death of Kamloops aid worker in Cambodia

A new story is emerging about what happened to a Kamloops man who died in Cambodia, originally reported as having been attacked, robbed and left for dead in a ditch.

Jiri Zivny, 43, died on Jan. 15 in Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh from injuries he allegedly sustained when assailants hit him on the head as he was riding away from a bank machine six days earlier in the coastal resort town of Sihanoukville.

According to the International Humanitarian Hope Society, the Kamloops-based charity with which Zivny went on the humanitarian aid mission to Southeast Asia to help orphans, Zivny was nearly beaten to death by his attackers, who stole $500 he withdrew at the ATM, along with his wallet, clothing and camera.

But subsequent reports from the country suggest the aid worker — who stayed with another group member known only as “Loren” to continue the mission overland to Thailand after the group split up in Vietnam in early December — may have died as a result of injuries he received in a motorcycle accident in Sihanoukville.

Curious to why newspapers in Cambodia were relying on Canadian media reports for information, freelance editor and writer Vincent MacIsaac, who lives in the small beachside town, looked into the alleged assault.

MacIsaac told KTW that, in addition to local traffic police reporting Zivny crashed his motorcycle into another bike in the early hours of Jan. 9, the chief of immigration police was quoted in the Cambodia Daily as never having heard of the attack.

“There was a media report that a fax was sent to the Canadian embassy here the day of the accident from traffic police in Sihanoukville, notifying the embassy that a Canadian had been injured in a traffic accident,” MacIsaac said.

When contacted by KTW, the Australian consulate in Phnom Penh, which provides services to Canadians in Cambodia, could neither confirm nor deny this.

“Consular officials are providing assistance and support to Mr. Zivny’s family, as well as following up with local authorities responsible for investigating his death,” said Daniel Barbarie, consular spokesperson.

“Due to the privacy act, no further information can be released on this case at this time.”

However, official police records show Zivny was transferred by an ambulance from Sihanoukville to the hospital in the capital city, where hospital records show he arrived at the emergency ward at 11:35 p.m. on Jan. 10, with the ambulance driver noting the patient had been in a motorcycle accident.

Zivny was immediately transferred to the intensive-care unit and, by 12:30 a.m., had been shifted to the neurological ward, where he died six days later, at 5:15 p.m. local time.

MacIsaac, who has worked in Far East and Southeast Asia for 14 years, was at Calmette Hospital the day Zivny died, interviewing doctors.

The doctors, he said, determined there were no cuts or bruises that indicated blunt-force trauma inflicted by an assailant.

“During the first interview, on the afternoon of Jan. 15, doctors treating the patient allowed me to see him,” MacIsaac reported in an article published in the Asian Sentinel.

“If he had been struck in the face, the wound had healed by then.”

Despite repeated attempts by KTW to contact her, Evelyn Picklyk, president and founder of IHHS, could not be reached for comment before press deadline.

Cashing in by Doing Good in Cambodia [-Mystery surrounding the death of Canadian Jiri Zivny in Cambodia]

Jiri Zivny - Was the story of the cause of his death made up by the Canadian charity he was involved with?

Friday, 23 January 2009
Written by Vincent MacIsaac Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong)

Canadian charity tight-lipped over death of 'aid worker'

A Canadian humanitarian group that launched a media and fundraising campaign claiming one of its members had been bludgeoned, robbed, stripped of his clothes and left to die in a Cambodian ditch is now asking that his family be left to "grieve in private" following complaints that nothing of the sort happened.

The death of the man described in the Canadian media as "Smiling Jiri" has become a potent fundraising tool for the charity in a story that has rolled across both Cambodia and Canada, generating huge publicity and controversy, and apparently money for the charity. But the dead man, Jiri Zivny, may have died as a result of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident after a night on the town in the coastal resort of Sihanoukville, a magnet for sex tourists.

Zivny, who died at the age of 43 in the neurological ward of Cambodia's best hospital, had no bruises or lacerations that would have indicated blunt force trauma inflicted by an assailant, doctors say. Traffic police in Sihanoukville reported that he crashed his bike into another motorcycle in the early hours of January 9. The driver of the other bike remains unconscious, police reports say.

Hospital records show Zivny arrived at the emergency ward of Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh, at 11.35pm on January 10 via an ambulance from Sihanoukville. According to records, the ambulance driver wrote that the patient had been in a motorcycle accident. Zivny was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit and by 12.30pm he had been shifted to the neurological ward. There was no information on whether he had valuables or money on him when he was admitted.

"I do not wish to carry on a dialogue about this situation. I have enough information to draw my own conclusions. So we will just leave it alone and the evidence of Jiri's injuries will be left alone so the family can grieve in private," Evelyn Picklyk, the founder and president of the Kamloops, British Columbia-based International Humanitarian Hope Society (IHHS) wrote in an email Wednesday morning.

"I know you are trying to protect your country, but this story is going global and it will reflect very badly on your country," she said by telephone earlier in the morning, despite being informed repeatedly that she was speaking to a Canadian reporter.

She was responding to an email and telephone call advising her that she and her group – which launched a campaign to raise C$100,000 to fly a comatose "aid worker" back to Canada for treatment – may have been misinformed about the care Zivny received at Calmette Hospital as well as the cause of his death. The email also requested detailed information about the individuals who had been supplying her with information from Cambodia.

During a previous phone call Monday night, she acknowledged that the group's claims were based on "circumstantial evidence". "There were no eyewitnesses," she said. "We really don't know what happened," she added before requesting that further discussion be conducted via email because, among other reasons, her "phone might be tapped."

However, on Wednesday morning she said she had photographic evidence that Zivny had been brutally assaulted in Sihanoukville. "The photos tell the story," she said. They show he had suffered blows to the side of his head as well as his face, she explained, although she declined to say who took the photos, when they were taken or how she obtained them. "Why do you want to know that?" she asked.

During four interviews with doctors at Calmette Hospital between January 15 and 20, the doctors said that there were no physical signs that Zivny had been struck on the head. During the first interview, on the afternoon of January 15, doctors treating the patient allowed me to see him. If he had been struck on the face the wound had healed by then. Zivny died in VIP room No.3 of the neurological ward of the hospital later that day, at 5.15pm.

Brain scans taken during the six days Zivny was in the ward show that his condition deteriorated steadily. At the same time, the description of Calmette Hospital in the Canadian media also deteriorated ­­– to the point where it was being described as being infested with rats.

"His injuries were not unlike those of other motorbike accident victims," said Dr. Phak Dararith, one of three doctors treating Zivny. "The swelling was internal," he said. There were no bruises or lacerations on his head that would indicate he had been struck by an assailant, he and other doctors at the hospital said. "I can't say whether or not he was robbed before he died, but there are no signs that he had been struck on the head [by an assailant]," Dr. Phak Dararith said.

Five doctors at the hospital on Tuesday expressed bewilderment at the media reports about the patient, as well as the fact that these reports included no information from the doctors treating him. "Why haven't they contacted us?" asked Dr. Yit Sinarong.

Two individuals, one of whom has carefully guarded his anonymity, are the primary sources of the reports from Cambodia in the Canadian media – after being filtered through the Kamloops, British Columbia charity. One is an American surgeon, Dr. Reid Sheftall from the American Medical Center. The other had been Zivny's traveling companion. The latter visited him every day to consult with doctors and pay his bill (US$100 per day plus the cost of medicine), but declined to identify himself by name or provide doctors with contact information.

The hospital wanted to be able to contact him immediately if the patient came out of his coma (a possibility considered very remote due to the severity of the trauma) so that Zivny would have a friend present, doctors said. However, the traveling companion "would not tell us his name and said that he had no phone and that he switched guesthouses every night," Dr. Phak Dararith said.

Dr. Sheftall and Picklyk have identified the traveling companion as a Vancouver resident named Lauren. Pikclyk said she did not know his family name because "it's one of those names that you can't recall offhand". Lauren had been a member of the group touring orphanages in Southeast Asia with her. When the rest of the group returned to Canada from Vietnam in late November, he and Zivny decided to travel overland to "do orphanage work" in Thailand, Picklyk said on Monday night. "They were not working at orphanages in Cambodia," she said, but could not explain why they spent about five weeks in Sihanoukville.

Sheftall has been the sole source of the medical information. He has been reported as saying Zivny's injuries were not consistent with a motorcycle accident, but said Wednesday that "sometimes I'm wrong."

When informed that Picklyk had said that her group had based its conclusion that Zivny had been attacked primarily on his examination of the patient, Sheftall replied, "Tell her to stop saying that. I was not in Sihanoukville. I did not see what happened. I did not examine the patient. I just looked in on him and checked on him so that I could update Evelyn and his family on his condition."

The story that spread across Canada from Kamloops is that Zivny was struck on the head by an assailant who had followed him from an ATM machine in the early hours of January 9 (media reports range from either 2am or 4am), after he withdrew $500 in cash. On her website, Picklyk said that he was also robbed of his watch and clothing. Since then, she has added that he was robbed of his camera as well.

The International Humanitarian Hope Society functions like a tourism business. Clients sign up and pay for tours that mix sight-seeing with visits to orphanages throughout Southeast Asia. The trips cost about $2,500 per person for airfare and accommodations. Health insurance is not included in the cost of the tours, but the society assists its clients in arranging health insurance before departure.

When the tour ended so did Zivny's health insurance. His tour in November was his second with the group, and media reports quote a close friend as saying the first had had a transformative effect on his life. He also remarked that Zivny had led a "wayward life" before meeting the missionary group linked to the orphanage work.

The mystery of what happened in Sihanoukville may boil down to a single comment made by an anonymous source (possibly Lauren) to the Cambodia Daily on January 20. The source said Zivny had spent the night before his death barhopping with a Cambodian woman. The report did not say, however, how much he had been drinking that night, or why he needed to go to an ATM machine well after midnight.

Picklyk insists that "Jiri was a true humanitarian who was trying to do good in Cambodia". She is now appealing for donations in his memory, but declines to answer any questions about how much was spent on his medical bills, or how much she raised to fly him back to Canada.

B.C. aid worker dies in Cambodia [after violent mugging attack]

Jiri Zivny, an aid worker in Cambodia, died from his injuries on Thursday after he was attacked and left for dead last week. (Courtesy of Monty Aldoff)

Thursday, January 15, 2009
CBC News (Canada)

A Canadian humanitarian worker from Kamloops, B.C., has died from injuries sustained when he was robbed in Cambodia last week.

Jiri Zivny died at 5:15 p.m. local time Thursday at Phnom Penh's Calmette hospital, where he was being treated for severe head wounds, a doctor told his friend Evelyn Picklyk in an email.

Zivny was attacked after withdrawing money from a bank machine on Friday and left for dead on the street, his friend Monty Aldoff told CBC News on Tuesday.

Dr. Reid Sheftall, who was not personally treating Zivny but was looking in on the case, said he noticed Zivny's heart rate had been low earlier Thursday.

Turned life around to work with orphans

Zivny's friend Monty Aldoff told CBC Radio he wanted Zivny to be remembered as someone who turned his life around.

"He was one that went through many struggles in his life, but turned his life around and started doing worthwhile things in his life," Aldoff said.

Zivny was a member of a humanitarian mission that travelled to southeast Asia in mid-November, delivering medical supplies to orphans on behalf of the International Humanitarian Hope Society.

Most of the group returned to B.C. over Christmas. Zivny and another worker stayed on in Cambodia to work with the orphans for another month, members of the team told CBC.

Zivny's medical insurance had expired before the attack. News of his death came as Picklyk and others were trying to raise funds to bring him back to Canada for treatment.

Friends vow to continue charity work

As they try to deal with the tragic news, the group is now raising money to bring Zivny's body back to Canada,

"We are just, we are beside ourselves right now," said Aldoff.

But despite the horrific attack, the group still plans to continue working in South East Asia, he said.

"We believe our mission there is a worthwhile mission. For anyone who doesn't think so, they have to see the faces of these little children — the joy they get when we go to bring them gifts, and bring them food and medical supplies," said Aldoff.

B.C. aid worker left for dead after Cambodia attack

Aid worker Jiri Zivney was attacked in Cambodia on January 9, 2009

Tue Jan. 13 2009
Darcy Wintonyk ctvbc.ca (Canada)

A B.C. man is fighting for his life in Cambodia after a violent mugging.

Humanitarian worker Jiri Zivney was beaten, robbed and left for dead January 9 in Phnom Penh outside a bank machine.

"As he was riding away on his motorbike, they clubbed him in the head and he crashed his bike," family friend Monty Aldoff tells CTV News.

The 46-year-old was transferred by ambulance to a hospital in the capital city, where he is listed in critical condition. Doctors are working to stabilize him so he can be brought back to Canada for treatment.

According to the International Humanitarian Hope Society, the Kamloops resident was in the country delivering medical supplies to orphans on behalf of their agency.

Zivney was on his 24th day of a humanitarian trip to China, Vietnam, Thailand and Burma. Most of the other team members returned to Canada after the Bangkok airport shutdown in November, but Zivney and another team member wanted to carry on by land.

A trust fund has been set up in Zivney's name at Valley First in Kamloops, B.C., Account # 610071571 (transit # 27310-809).