May 08, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 20, 1428

LONDON, May 7: Bob Woolmer may have been poisoned by a weedkiller, high concentrations of which were found in his stomach and on the outside of a champagne glass, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

The paper said it had been told by ‘a source close to the Jamaican police’ that Woolmer had ingested enough of the herbicide to kill him.

Detectives were looking into two bottles of champagne that had been gifted to Woolmer, one of which had been emptied while the other remained unopened in his hotel room.

Woolmer was found dead in his room at the Pegasus hotel in Jamaica the day after Pakistan's elimination from the World Cup.

The weedkiller was so rare, The Sunday Times reported, that investigators had yet to establish whether it is available in Jamaica.

“Everything was contaminated,” said the police source. “The stomach content, the glass, everything. There was enough to kill him. We think it's something very unusual, that you can't even buy in Jamaica.

“We don't know what form it was in, whether liquid or crystal. The weedkiller was certainly in the glass. We are not sure whether it was in the bottle. Until we get further results we can't confirm it.”

Pervez Mir, the former manager of the Pakistan team, said Woolmer had received the champagne.

“I was told that somebody had brought two bottles,” he said, adding that Woolmer was not particularly fond of champagne. “He told me he was mostly a beer drinker because he was a diabetic and it suited his blood sugar.”—Agencies