A 22-year-old Briton has been charged with reckless manslaughter for allegedly beating his girlfriend to death while vacationing on Crete.

The local prosecutor pressed charges late Tuesday after Luke Walker was arrested for allegedly attacking his girlfriend Chelsea Hyndman, 21, in a crime of passion. The case is the latest in a series of troubling incidents involving young British vacationers in Crete.

"He was charged with manslaughter with malice aforethought," Athens police official Mania Karabasiadou told AOL News. "He is being held at a detention center in Heraklion, Crete, and faces a preliminary hearing before a district prosecutor Thursday."

That hearing will determine whether Walker, who insists he is innocent, will be detained pending trial or released on bail. If convicted, he faces up to life imprisonment.

"These preliminary charges are very serious," said George Koundourakis, the Greek attorney representing Walker. "We believe that the evidence we will present tomorrow will lead the prosecutor to lessen the charge."

Koundourakis conceded, however, that the postmortem report was "damning."

Hyndman died late Monday after suffering ruptured internal organs, which forensics experts said were the result of "physical violence" and "forceful blows to the stomach."

A police report said the pair became involved in a heated row in their rented apartment in Malia, a favorite holiday spot among young Britons. The pair, who had been dating for two years, arrived in late April with the intent of finding work to carry them through the summer.

Hyndman was admitted to a local clinic in Malia late Sunday after suffering severe abdominal pain. She was later transferred to the Venizelio hospital, where she had emergency surgery but later died in the intensive care unit.

Police in Malia said the incident was sparked by attention Hyndman was said to be receiving from other men. Both families were being given consular assistance, according to a statement issued by the British Foreign Office.

The case is certain to worsen the bad reputation British visitors have among Greeks and in the once sleepy town of Malia, nestled on the northeast coast of Crete. Hoards of young Britons travel to the resort town on packaged tours offering cheap alcohol and a license to misbehave.

Worried about the rising cases of scandalous incidents, the British consulate in Athens kicked off several campaigns in 2008 to encourage the tourists to drink less and behave better.

So grave, though, were the incidents that continued regularly in Malia that in the same year the British Foreign Office published a "British Behaviour Abroad" report. It noted that in the 12-month period between 2006 and 2007, a total of 602 Britons were hospitalized and 28 were raped in Greece, predominantly in Malia.

The reported also cited 1,591 deaths in Spain, and 2,032 arrests of young British nationals overall abroad.

It was not immediately clear whether the stiff criminal charges leveled against Walker were part of ongoing efforts by Malia authorities get tough in advance of Britons' arrival in Crete with the start of the summer holiday season.