May 16, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1428

KINGSTON, May 15: 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.

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.

LAWMAKER BLASTS JAMAICAN POLICE: An opposition lawmaker urged Jamaican security officials Monday to provide the basis of their theory that Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was murdered, describing media reports to the contrary as a “global embarrassment” for the Caribbean nation.

Derrick Smith, of the Jamaica Labour Party, said the confusion raised by the conflicting accounts jeopardized the reputation of the country's police, who launched a murder inquiry following Woolmer's death.

“Announcements emerging from police and medical authorities in both Britain and Pakistan indicate that Mr. Woolmer's death was from natural causes and not murder as suggested by the Jamaica police authorities,” Smith told a news conference. “The matter has become a global embarrassment for us.”

A pathologist initially ruled the cause of death was inconclusive but four days later determined Woolmer had been strangled.

Smith said that to prevent further damage the Security Ministry must “state conclusively what are the circumstances which have convinced our police that his death was due to foul play.”

Calls to the office of National Security Minister Peter Phillips were not returned.

The Times of London reported Monday that a government pathologist, Nat Carey, concluded Woolmer was not strangled after reviewing evidence including autopsy reports on behalf of Jamaican authorities.

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.—Agencies