KINGSTON, March 28: A second autopsy will be performed on the body of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer to ward off any speculation that the initial examination may have been bungled, British media reported on Wednesday.

Deputy police commissioner Mark Shields was quoted by British newspapers as saying that a fresh post-mortem had been ordered to counter possible claims from defence lawyers in the event of an arrest.

“If we arrest someone and charge them, the defence counsel will want a second post-mortem,” Shields told The Times.

Jamaica police could not immediately be contacted to confirm the reports and it was not clear when the second autopsy would take place.

A news conference was scheduled for later Wednesday.

A whispering campaign has gathered pace suggesting that the initial post-mortem was flawed, and that Woolmer may have broken a bone in his neck by falling heavily against a bathroom sink instead of being throttled.

The Jamaican police are planning to collect the DNA samples, fingerprints and photographs of every person in the 300-room hotel where Woolmer was found dead.

Police do not know how many people were in Kingston's Pegasus hotel on the weekend that Woolmer was strangled but concede it could easily be more than 1,000.

“It is our intention to DNA and fingerprint every single person in the hotel, which is a huge task but I believe it has to be done,” Jamaican deputy commissioner Mark Shields told Reuters in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

“I am hoping that when the forensic report is through and we have studied it we will find fingerprints and also DNA of a suspect.—Reuters/AFP