Pakistan official questions Woolmer hotel's security

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica, Mar 23 (Reuters) A senior Pakistan cricket official questioned the level of security at the Kingston hotel where team coach Bob Woolmer was murdered on Sunday morning.

Jamaican police revealed yesterday in Kingston that Woolmer, 58, was strangled in his Pegasus Hotel room by one or more people.

The murder of one of cricket's leading coaches has completely overshadowed the ninth World Cup which culminates on April 28 with the final in Barbados.

The hotel safety arrangements have now come into question after the team's media manager Pervez Mir indicated that the level of security there was clearly not good enough.

''Yes, so it seems,'' Mir said in reply to being asked whether the hotel security was too lax prior to Woolmer's murder.

'VERY ALARMING' ''If a murder has been committed right under our eyes in the premises of the hotel, where the Irish team was staying, where the West Indian team was staying, where the Pakistani team was staying, it is very much alarming.

''When you start playing in a country (sic) like the Caribbean you don't really expect any sort of a problem, you don't anticipate that anything like this could happen.'' Mir said that the crime is a wake-up call to the sport's authorities and that cricketers' and officials need to be better protected as they are in the cricket-mad sub-continent.

It is normal in Pakistan, especially during a high profile series or tournament, for there to be four armed soldiers attending every corridor of a team hotel with more near the main entrance.

''I think authorities will have to really look into it seriously all round the world in all the cricket-playing nations because we are dealing with something which never used to exist in cricket,'' Mir said.

''This is shocking and alarming because in Pakistan when foreign teams come, the government of Pakistan and the Pakistan Cricket Board take all kinds of measures.

''In fact, more measures than are necessary. They sometimes get criticised that we have so many police and so many security people around but that is for the security of the visiting teams. When you go to India they do the same.'' Mir said that in light of the latest information, the police ''have doubled up the security and doubled up their police protection officers''.

He added that there are also a lot of plain-clothed and uniformed police at their hotel in Montego Bay, where they flew to Thursday on an invitation from Jamaica's Prime Minister to ''get away from it''.

Reuters BDP DB0900