Jamaican police have discounted claims by tabloid newspapers and gay rights activists that the slaying of a New Zealand-born British diplomat, John Terry, 65, was a homophobic attack.

Mr Terry, a British honorary consul at the tourist mecca of Montego Bay, was found strangled in his house at nearby Mount Carey, on September 10.

His naked body was wrapped in a sheet and detectives discovered a handwritten note in the four-bedroom house, which reportedly described him as a "batty" man, local slang for homosexual.

This led to claims that he was the victim of a homophobic attack.

But the head of Jamaica's serious and organised crime squad, assistant commissioner Les Green, said the evidence pointed away from a hate crime.

"I don't think it is a homophobic attack, although it's been run in the UK press," Mr Green told the Sunday Observer newspaper in the capital, Kingston.

"It isn't consistent with the information that we have. It is unlikely."

Mr Green said gay people in Jamaica lived quite openly and mingled freely.

The vast majority of gay homicides were crimes of passion.

Another New Zealander, tourist Tiki Stardust Steel Hunia, 27, was shot dead in an upmarket suburb of the capital during July, when a thief tried to rob his wife Nickie-Jean.

His killer remains at large with police indicating they may need to bring back foreign witnesses to identify suspects.