Pakistan cricket coach was strangled

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Pakistan’s cricket coach Bob Woolmer was strangled in his hotel room after the team’s shocking World Cup loss to Ireland, police said Thursday.

Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas said in a statement that the pathologist report found Bob Woolmer’s death was due to “asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation.”

The statement, which was read by a police spokesman at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel where Woolmer was killed on Sunday, said police were now treating the case as a murder investigation. Police said they were reviewing security cameras at the hotel and seeking witnesses to the crime.

“It is our belief that those associated with or having access with Mr. Woolmer may have vital information to assist this inquiry,” Thomas said in the statement.

Woolmer, 58, was found unconscious in his blood- and vomit-splattered hotel room in Jamaica on Sunday, a day after his team’s upset loss to Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day sealed Pakistan’s ouster from the tournament. He was later declared dead at a hospital.

Pakistan cricketers were fingerprinted and interviewed on Thursday by police investigating his death. They were allowed to leave the hotel in the afternoon and travel to Montego Bay.

No arrests have been made and there are no suspects in the case, police said.

It was not clear if the team would be asked to remain in Jamaica pending the investigation, but Mark Shields, a deputy police commissioner at the press conference, said the players have pledged full cooperation.

Earlier Thursday, Assistant Police Commissioner Les Green, formerly of Scotland Yard, said the team was fingerprinted as part of standard procedure “to eliminate persons from fingerprints which would be found in the room.”

Woolmer’s wife, Gill, said Thursday in an interview from South Africa with Britain’s Sky TV that she had not ruled out that her husband was murdered.

“I mean some of the cricketing fraternity, fans are extremely volatile and passionate about the game and what happens in the game, and also a lot of it in Asia, so I suppose there is always the possibility that it could be that (murder),” she said.

Former Pakistani player Sarfraz Nawaz speculated earlier in the week that the coach was killed by gambling interests.

But his widow said her husband had not recently mentioned anything about match fixing.