Bangkok  - Thai police on Wednesday identified a foreigner whose head was found at the weekend hanging by a rope off a Bangkok bridge as an Italian tourist who committed suicide after being evicted from his guesthouse for not paying the rent.

General Jongrak Chuthanont, deputy police commissioner, identified the decapitated man as Maurizio Tosadori, 54, an architect from Verona, Italy.

Tosadori's head was found Sunday attached to a mountain-climbing rope hanging 5 metres below Bangkok's Rama VIII bridge, which crosses the Chao Phraya River in north-east Bangkok.

His body was found in the river Monday.

Jongrak said Tosadori had entered Thailand on February 6 from Cambodia. The Italian tourist had been asked to leave his guesthouse on Khao Sarn Road, a popular backpacker hangout in Bangkok, on Saturday after failing to pay the rent for two weeks.

Wimol Jaijong, the guesthouse owner, said Tosadori appeared to be frequently sick and had many medicines in his room.

Initially, foul play was suspected in Tosadori's death as police assumed the head had been left as a warning in an organized-crime-style slaying.

Thai doctors who conducted an autopsy said the most likely cause of death was suicide with the 5-metre drop and strong gravitational pull tearing the torso from the head, which remained tied to the rope.

The suicide theory appeared to be verified by a spray of blood on the side of the bridge found just above where the head was hanging.

"We are conducting a DNA test on the blood to verify it is Tosadori's," police Lieutenant Colonel Atcharat Haemthanon said.

But the identify of the person mentioned in Tosadori's apparent suicide note left on the bridge railing remained a mystery.

Written on the railing was the sentence in English, "Cath. I want but I cannot. ... I came to Bangkok to be with you."

"We are checking to verify if it was Tosadori's handwriting," Atcharat said. (dpa)