Former world heavyweight boxing champion Trevor Berbick was gruesomely killed in Jamaica on Saturday by an assailant wielding a hatchet or machete, according to police.

He was the last boxer to beat the legendary Muhammad Ali in 1981 and held the world heavyweight title briefly in 1986 before losing it to Mike Tyson.

Berbick, 51, suffered a gaping head wound in the attack in his native Norwich village, 146 miles (91 km) east of Kingston, and was pronounced dead at the Port Antonio Hospital. Police said the assailant was carrying a weapon such as a machete or hatchet that cut a deep "chop wound." Friends said they had seen Berbick at a party on Friday night but police insisted they had few other details on his death.

Berbick represented Jamaica at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and settled in Canada, turning professional the following year and winning the WBC heavyweight title in 1986, when he defeated American Pinklon Thomas. He returned to Jamaica in 2003 after being deported from the United States, where he had several run-ins with the law and served a prison sentence.

Jamaica has been fighting a surge in murders and crime that threatens the Caribbean island's crucial tourist trade and is believed to be drug-related.