PCB officials suspect Woolmer was not murdered
By Waheed Khan
Guyana Chronicle
March 29, 2007
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan cricket board officials suspect that the death of coach Bob Woolmer was due to natural causes and that the Jamaican police acted hastily by declaring it a murder.
A senior official of the board, who asked not to be identified, said they had received information that there could have been mistakes in the first autopsy on Woolmer's body.
"We believe that the autopsy by the pathologist may have had error counts and they (police) are now considering having a second autopsy to confirm the cause of death," the official told Reuters.
"The feedback we have got is there are some contradictions in the version of events after Woolmer's body was found unconscious. But we will get a clearer picture after our manager briefs the board on what took place there," he said.
Woolmer, 58, was found unconscious in his hotel room on March 18, the day after Pakistan had lost to Ireland and been eliminated from the World Cup.
He was declared dead later at a hospital and Jamaican investigators said after the autopsy that they had compelling evidence to suggest the former England player had been strangled.
Briton Mark Shields, the deputy police commissioner heading the investigations, told Reuters in Kingston on Tuesday that it could take months to piece together a complicated murder case with hundreds of potential witnesses.
The PCB official said the board was convinced none of its players were involved in any wrongdoing. "We are backing our players to the hilt," he said.