Jamaican deputy police commissioner Mark Shields said the Bob Woolmer case is being investigated as a murder despite reports the Pakistan cricket coach died of a heart attack. "As I have said from day one, we will be keeping an open mind and looking at all angles. Please give us more time," Shields told the Jamaica Observer from his hotel room in Cape Town, South Africa.
Woolmer, 58, was found dead in his Kingston hotel room on March 18, the day after cricketing powers Pakistan crashed out of the World Cup in an upset loss to minnows Ireland. The Jamaican Gleaner newspaper reported Sunday that sources in Scotland Yard, from whom Jamaican police have sought help, said Woolmer's death was caused by heart failure and not murder as reported by the local police.
"Every theory, from weed killer to aconite, has come from the media, not the police," Shields said. "We maintain that this is an ongoing murder investigation."
Shields is a former Scotland Yard detective who is in South Africa briefing the Woolmer family.
It was reported that British-based pathologist Nat Carey had rubbished the report filed by local pathologist Ere Seshiah that ruled Woolmer had died of asphyxiation due to manual strangulation. Shields, chief investigator in the Woolmer murder probe, refused to comment on the allegations, saying he would stick by a police statement Sunday that maintained that Woolmer was murdered.
"I can't comment on that as it would be inappropriate at this time," Shields said. Derrick Smith, the opposition Jamaica Labour spokesman on security, called on Jamaican national security minister Peter Phillips to brief the nation on the Woolmer saga. "The matter has become a global embarrassment for us," Smith said. "The situation is embarrassing and should be dealt with as a matter of urgency."
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