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Pakistan Cricket Team Leaves Jamaica Amid Woolmer Murder Probe

By admin | March 25, 2007

Pakistan’s cricketers left Jamaica after police investigating the murder of national team coach Bob Woolmer questioned three squad members.

Captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, team manager Talat Ali and assistant coach Mushtaq Ahmed spoke to police yesterday before Pakistan left Montego Bay for London. Mark Shields, Jamaica’s deputy police commissioner, said the team had cooperated fully.

“They have answered any ambiguities and unanswered questions,” Shields said at a news conference late yesterday and broadcast on Australia’s Sky News.

Woolmer was found in a hotel room March 18, less than a day after Pakistan’s surprise World Cup defeat to Ireland, a second- tier nation making its debut at one-day cricket’s top tournament. Jamaican police said he was strangled.

Investigators are awaiting the results of pathology tests that may give some clues as to who killed Woolmer, a 58-year-old Englishman who’d coached Pakistan since 2004. Shields told the British Broadcasting Corp. two days ago that Woolmer probably knew his killer because there was no sign of a forced entry into his room at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.

Pakistan’s players had already given police DNA samples and fingerprints. Team officials don’t “expect anyone to be called back here,” Pakistan’s GEO TV cited team spokesman Pervez Mir as saying before the team’s departure.

Part of the police investigation is focusing on whether Woolmer’s death is connected with match-fixing. Officers from the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit, set up in 2000 to root out cheats in the sport, are in Jamaica helping local police.

Pakistan Cricket Board operations manager Asad Mustafa and trainer Murray Stevenson stayed behind in Jamaica to look after Woolmer’s interests. Woolmer’s body is being kept in Kingston until an inquest is held.

Topics: Cricket News |