June 05, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 19, 1428

KINGSTON (Jamaica), June 4: The Jamaican Police have requested a third pathology report on the death of former Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, the Jamaican Gleaner newspaper quoted a senior police officer saying.

The officer, who did not want to be named, said Woolmer was not murdered.

“Certainly, in my view it was not murder,” the officer said.

It was also reported that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) would not make an official comment until after the final toxicology results are in and, more important, the third pathology report has been received.

News broke last month, that Woolmer, who was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room on March 18, the day after Pakistan were embarrassed by Ireland in a major upset at the World Cup.

A week after, the Jamaican police first reported suspicious, then murdered, but later turned to Scotland Yard for help in the case.

Last week, the BBC reported that London's Metropolitan Police reached the conclusion after studying work by a pathologist from Britain's Home Office, who flew to Jamaica to probe Woolmer's death, and disclosed that Woolmer was not murdered, but died of heart failure.

In the Monday Gleaner's report, Dr Garfield Blake, president of the Jamaica Association of Clinical Pathologists, who earlier criticized Britain pathologist Dr Nat Carey, defended his local colleague Dr Ere Sheshiah, who disclosed Woolmer's death was due to ‘asphyxiation as a result of manual strangulation’

“The best of persons in any field can make an error,” Blake said.

This adds to the spate of reports over the weekend in England claiming that Scotland Yard's review of the case had led to the same conclusion.

Based on the findings of the Home Office pathologist, Scotland Yard is believed to have concluded that Woolmer died from heart failure and chronic ill health. The broken bone in his neck, which was key to suggestions that he had been strangled, is now understood to have been caused by his subsequent heavy fall.

Woolmer's widow, Gill, and their family are understood to have cautiously welcomed the news.

Neil Manthorp, a South African cricket journalist and a friend of the family, told The Sunday Telegraph: “There will definitely be a great sense of relief if this is confirmed. I hope for Bob's sake and that of his family that his death was quick and painless.”

An editorial in the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday said the u-turn might not be the end of the matter. “The twists and turns in the Bob Woolmer case will, we suspect, continue until all the rumours, speculation and half-blown theories regarding the cause of his death have been finally laid to rest by concrete forensic and other evidence.”

It went on to say that pressure was now growing on Dr Ere Seshaiah, the pathologist employed by the Jamaican government, and Mark Shields, the high-profile deputy commissioner of the Jamaican police force.

Seshaiah produced the autopsy which suggested that Woolmer had been murdered. Subsequent reports said that toxicology tests were said to have revealed that Woolmer had been poisoned.

Shields travelled to Cape Town last month where it is reported he warned Gill Woolmer that it had become ‘uncertain’ how her husband had died and that there could have been a ‘misinterpretation’ of the post-mortem examination results.—Agencies