LONDON, May 20: The Indian-born Kingston pathologist Dr Ere Seshaiah, who performed the autopsy on Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer's body, is now under scrutiny for his findings which led to the Jamaican police claims that Woolmer died of asphyxia and strangulation during the World Cup hours after Pakistan were defeated by Ireland.

A senior Jamaican police officer is reported to have privately admitted that their investigation into the death of Woolmer may have been based on error by the pathologist Dr Seshaiah.

Mark Shields, the second in command of the Jamaican police, travelled to Cape Town last week to see Woolmer's wife Gill to inform her that probably her husband's death was not murder at all.

The Indian doctor's findings who came to Jamaica twelve years ago that Woolmer died of asphyxia and strangulations was based after he re-examined the body. His initial autopsy to the cause of death was inconclusive.

According to him the hyoid bone in the neck was fractured and there were three contusions or bruises inside tissues of Woolmer’s neck and another at the base of his tongue.

The post-mortem report and photographs were later sent to a leading British home office pathologist Dr Nat Carey whose findings sent to Mark Shields rejects strangulation. Carey's x-ray report says that there may be doubts as to whether the hyoid bone was broken.

Seshaiah diagnosis was based on visual examination without any x-ray. The hyoid bone could be broken by a fall, resuscitation or by poor autopsy technique. “A fractured hyoid bone does not make a strangulation. This is the heart of the case”, he is reported to have said.

The Jamaican police have also now approached the FBI to find a pathologist for third opinion. Like a senior police officer in Jamaica, Dr Derek Pounder of Dundee University believes that the Kingston pathology lab is overworked and archaic.

Police have also dismissed the theory that traces of herbicide in his champagne glass had anything to do with the cause of death. One finding that Woolmer had a enlarged heart could give a more sensible and simple explanation according to Dr Pounder. “There was no sign of struggle.

The scene was not disturbed. If someone was strangled you would expect resistance or a fight. A grown man like Woolmer would be expected to fight the strangler and acquire bruises and abrasions around the neck but there was none on Woolmer,” the senior Jamaican police officer is reported to have admitted in Sunday Times of London.