A US financier found hanging in a Bermuda guest apartment in 2005 committed suicide, a coroner ruled today.

Two theories were raised at an inquest earlier this month into the death of Peter Dimitri Pappas— that he was the victim of a sexual self-strangulation experiment that went fatally wrong, or that he committed suicide after the woman he loved spurned his marriage proposal.

His father, Jack Pappas, told the inquest he was certain the 35-year-old, known as Dimitri, would not have committed suicide.

His ex-girlfriend Anya McHale, however, gave evidence of how he wanted to rekindle their relationship and spoke of killing himself if she would not marry him.

Ms McHale, a forensic psychologist with the Department of Court Services in Bermuda, said she did not believe he really intended to commit suicide, and was using the threat as emotional blackmail.

Giving his verdict, coroner Juan Wolffe said Mr. Pappas' behaviour prior to his death led him to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that he had deliberately taken his own life.

For full details of the inquest verdict, see tomorrow's edition of The Royal Gazette.