Former Pakistani cricket coach Bob Woolmer was not murdered but died of natural causes, Jamaican police said on Tuesday.
Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) Commissioner Lucius Thomas also ruled out match-fixing in relation to Woolmer’s death during the World Cup tournament in the Caribbean.
Foreign pathologists ”concur with the view that Mr Woolmer died of natural causes”, while in further toxicology tests, ”no substance was found to indicate that Bob Woolmer was poisoned”, he said.
”The JCF accepts these findings and has now closed its investigation into the death of Mr Bob Woolmer,” Thomas told a news conference.
Commenting on allegations of match-fixing, he added that ”neither the ICC [International Cricket Council] nor the JCF have found any evidence of any impropriety by players, match officials nor management during the investigation of Mr Bob Woolmer’s death.”
Woolmer (58) died soon after being found unconscious in his hotel room in Jamaica on March 18, the day after Pakistan were knocked out of the Cricket World Cup by Ireland.
An initial autopsy report proved inconclusive, but a pathology report later indicated he died of asphyxia as a result of ”manual strangulation”, which led the police to treat the death as murder.
The claims rocked the world of cricket amid speculation about links to an alleged gambling mafia.
”The JCF adopted a thoroughly professional investigation where nothing was left to chance. Every effort has been made by the JCF to seek the truth surrounding Bob Woolmer’s death,” Thomas said.
”My hope is that despite the trauma of the last two and half months, Mrs [Gill] Woolmer and her sons will be confident that the JCF has done all it can to establish the truth surrounding the death of her husband.”
Meanwhile, the family of Woolmer expressed relief at the Jamaican police announcement that he had died of natural causes and not murder as initially suspected.
”We hope that this matter will now be closed and that our family will be left to grieve in peace,” his widow, Gill Woolmer, said in a media statement.
In South Africa, where Woolmer was cremated in May near his family home, the reaction combined relief for his family with anger at the three-month investigation.
”Bob left a tremendous legacy in cricket, and to have to go through all this fumbling and bumbling without knowing what happened has been tough,” Gary Kirsten, a former South Africa opener, told Reuters.
Relief, anger
Pakistani players expressed anger and relief on Tuesday after Jamaican police confirmed that Woolmer was not murdered, with some calling for the Caribbean investigators to be sued.
The Pakistan squad were all fingerprinted and provided DNA samples after Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room.
Then-captain Inzamam-ul-Haq — one of three squad members who were questioned twice after police said Woolmer was strangled — said there was no need to reopen wounds with legal action.
”I don’t feel court action would be of any use now. The players in general and I, as captain in particular, went through hell and those were the most terrible days of our lives,” Inzamam told Agence France-Presse.
”We must be ready to handle such things better in future by involving the government and the [Pakistan Cricket] board from the initial stages,” added Inzamam, who retired as skipper after the tournament.
Theories swirling around Woolmer’s death in the media ranged from the use of poison to the involvement of a so-called ”match-fixing mafia”, or even the al-Qaeda network.
The devout Inzamam, who said he would offer thanksgiving prayers following Tuesday’s announcement, said he was still haunted by the memories of the week after Woolmer’s death.
”It was a very tough time. We were out of the World Cup and still had to play one more match [against Zimbabwe] and people had hurled all sorts of allegations,” he said.
Inzamam said the Pakistani squad were ”more than willing” to cooperate with the police because they believed their statements would help the investigation into the popular coach’s demise.
”But when it dawned on us later that we were suspected, it was unbelievably horrifying.”
Star Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf, however, urged the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to sue the Jamaican police to compensate the players for what they went through.
”The PCB should take legal action. But it’s not up to the players. We cannot sue the Jamaican police. It is a matter to be handled by the PCB,” Yousuf told AFP.
”It was their investigation. It was okay and we cooperated, but we were fingerprinted and not allowed to leave, which added to our pain of being knocked out of the World Cup.”
Yousuf said players had never believed that Woolmer had been murdered. ”We felt it was a natural death from day one and we feel the same now,” he said. — Sapa-AFP, Reuters