The British Embassy confirmed that a body was found last week and said one of its citizens was missing.

"A foreigner was killed near the Great Wall and he has an English passport," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said at a briefing in Beijing yesterday, adding that authorities were investigating.

An officer who answered the phone at the Yanqing County Public Security Bureau, a police station near the Great Wall's well-traveled Badaling site, said a foreign tourist had been "attacked and is possibly dead." He would not give his name and had no additional details.

Alex Pinfield, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Beijing, confirmed that a British national was missing near the Wall but said he could not give any name or gender. He said a body was found on October 2. Britain's Press Association and The Times of London identified the tourist as Tom Dawson, 24, a graphic artist from West London. Both said he was at the beginning of an eight-month tour around Asia.

(eastday.com October 11, 2002)