As friends and relatives flocked to the funeral of 20-year-old Doujon Zammit in Sydney yesterday, the probe into the circumstances of the tourist’s fatal beating on Myconos last month took a new turn with a coast guard official being implicated in the attack.

The suspect, aged under 30, was suspended from his post last Thursday when his name was mentioned in the testimony of one the four people charged in connection with Zammit’s death, a Merchant Marine Ministry source told Kathimerini. The same source said that the new suspect had been a member of the coast guard’s elite unit.

According to the ministry, the suspect was present at the beating at the end of last month but had not been physically involved in the attack on Zammit. The coast guard said yesterday that it had launched an internal investigation to determine exactly what happened.

Meanwhile the implication of the fifth suspect in last month’s tragedy has fueled debate about well-built coast guard officials and other security force workers moonlighting as nightclub “heavies.”

Such officials have been linked to nightclub revenge attacks in the past, most recently when a navy officer was charged with attacking the owner of a central Athens nightclub on behalf of a rival club owner.

Since the vicious attack on Zammit, police on Myconos and at other holiday resorts, including Malia on Crete, have intensified inspections on nightclubs in a bid to curb excessively heavy-handed tactics by bouncers and other violations.

According to police on the island, a sweep over the past two months has resulted in the arrest of dozens of club bouncers, many of whom were found to have illegal weapons in their possession.