Ex-UN General Assembly president died weightlifting, examiner rules

NEW YORK — A New York medical examiner says a former president of the U.N. General Assembly awaiting trial in a bribery scandal died in a weightlifting accident.

Dr. Kunjlata Ashar, Westchester County's medical examiner, said Thursday that John Ashe died when a barbell he was lifting from a bench dropped on his neck. Ashe was declared dead Wednesday by a paramedic who responded to his Dobbs Ferry home.

Ashar said the cause of death — traumatic asphyxia — was determined during an autopsy.

Ashe, the former United Nations ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda, was arrested last fall and had pleaded not guilty to tax charges related to a bribery scandal. Prosecutors say a billionaire Chinese businessman and others had funneled more than $1 million to Ashe while served as president of the General Assembly.

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