Pakistani investigators on Saturday submitted a report to the government on the death in March of cricket coach Bob Woolmer, concluding that there was no evidence that he was strangled as Jamaican police maintain, news reports said.
Two Pakistani officers sent to Jamaica also rejected claims that the coach was murdered during the Cricket World Cup because of his knowledge of crime syndicate involvement in cricketing fixtures. "Nothing suggests that there has been any match fixing," an unamed official at the Interior Ministry in Islamabad told Aaj television.
Tissue samples from Woolmer's body were sent to Britain for analysis, the official added. Jamaican police recently said his death may have resulted from a combination of poisoning and violence. The Pakistani investigators arrived in Jamaica on April 10 and in collaboration with Scotland Yard and Jamaican police investigated the case for two weeks up to April 26.
Pakistan and the cricket world were shaken when police in Jamaica announced that Woolmer was murdered in his hotel room in Kingston, hours after the Pakistani team was knocked out of the World Cup by the Irish on March 17. It was speculated that the 58-year-old coach was about to blow the whistle on match-fixing intrigues after a period of turbulence at the head of the team.