Missing British journalist found dead on Greek island: police

British diet guru and television personality Michael Mosley was found dead on Sunday on the Greek island of Symi, where he went missing this week, police said.

“People on a boat saw a body near the rocky coast,” said Petros Vassilakis, police chief of the southern Aegean region.

The lifeless body was spotted by a television crew from Greek public broadcaster ERT while filming the area where the 67-year-old disappeared.

A cameraman “saw something strange near the fence, 50 meters from the sea,” ERT journalist Aristide Miaoulis said on air.

“We found out it was this man…he was lying (on his back).”

Symi Mayor Lefteris Papakalodoukas was also part of the crew and confirmed that they had found Mosley, who was vacationing on the island.

“It is the body of the journalist that we have been looking for for several days,” he told ERT. Authorities announced on Friday that they were intensifying the search after the Briton was last seen alive on Wednesday.

His wife Clare Bailey alerted police that evening when he failed to return alone from a coastal walk.

Papakalodoukas said Symi was living in “unbearable heat” and that the area where Mosley was last seen was “difficult because it is very rocky.”

Much of Greece saw record temperatures for the first week of June, reaching 39.3 degrees Celsius in Symi, close to Rhodes and western Turkey.

Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of Britain's main opposition Labor Party who lost weight thanks to one of Mosley's books, paid tribute to a “hero” who produced “brave and scientific journalism”.

Saleyha Ahsan, Mosley's co-presenter on the BBC show “Trust Me, I'm A Doctor”, told BBC News she had a “passion” for making science “accessible to everyone”.

Mosley trained as a doctor after working as an investment banker and joined the BBC as a trainee producer.

He went on to direct science and history documentaries and, over the past decade, has carved out a niche as an on-camera health guru and author of best-selling diet books.

The health journalist, credited with popularizing the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet, has appeared on television programs such as “The One Show” and “This Morning.” (AFP)