Jamaican police said they are analysing new information in the death of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer but declined to address reports that he was not murdered and died of natural causes.
Breaking a long silence about the high-profile case, Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas said on Wednesday that investigators would make a formal statement on Woolmer’s death after reviewing the new information.
”We are in receipt of some material. We are studying it and we will make a statement shortly to address the whole issue of Bob Woolmer,” Thomas told reporters in Jamaica’s capital of Kingston.
Thomas declined to elaborate on the information or say whether investigators are still treating Woolmer’s death as a homicide.
British newspaper the Daily Mail reported on Saturday that police investigators now believe the 58-year-old died of heart failure and are set to
make an announcement.
Woolmer was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room on March 18 after the Pakistan national team he led lost to Ireland in a major upset at the World Cup. A Jamaican pathologist initially called the cause of death inconclusive, but four days later ruled that Woolmer was strangled.
The Mail cited an unidentified colleague of Mark Shields, Jamaica’s top officer on the case, blaming the former Scotland Yard investigator for the confusion over the death and said he should have ordered a second post-mortem.
The Times newspaper last month reported that a British pathologist reviewing Woolmer’s death has concluded he was not strangled.
Thomas said investigators ”are hearing all of these rumours” but refused to comment on the media reports.
A flurry of unsourced new reports, especially in the British press, have dogged the investigation from the start, including unsubstantiated claims that Woolmer was poisoned before being strangled or may have been the victim of an illegal betting mafia. – Sapa-AP