Woolmer died of heart attack not poisoned: Report

London, June 8: Amid claims by Jamaica police of possessing ''new material'' in the death mystery of Bob Woolmer, a British newspaper today said the Pakistan World Cup coach died of heart attack and the the post mortem conducted by the local pathologist was bungled.

'The Times' said three internationally renowned pathologists have now concluded that Woolmer was not strangled but died of heart attack and this will be announced by the head of Jamaica's police Lucius Thomas next week.

''Thomas will also say Woolmer was not poisoned. Toxicology reports show that there was nothing in Woolmer's body that could have killed or incapacitated him,'' a report in the newspaper said.

The last of the three concurring pathologists' reports was received on Tuesday from a strangulation expert in South Africa.

With the two other independent reports, it provides overwhelming consensus that the original postmortem examination was bungled, the report said.

Woolmer was found unconscious at his hotel room in Jamaica on March 18, a day fater Pakistan's shock loss to Ireland in the World Cup, and was later declared brought dead at a local hospital on the same day.

Later, based on post-mortem report by India-born Jamaica overnment pathologist Ere Seshaiah, police declared that Woolmer was murdered by strangulation.

The report also claimed that Gill Woolmer, Bob's widow, and their sons, Russell and Dale, were informed at their South Africa home last month that Woolmer, a diabetic who slept with an oxygen mask, died of a heart attack, probably brought on by high stress and an enlarged heart.

They are said to be hugely relieved to learn that he was not murdered.

Crucial to the conclusion of natural death, according to the report, was that the postmortem examination was filmed with high-quality digital colour video that helped outside pathologists to rule out murder.

Colour digital photographs were also taken before, during and after the examination, as were multiple tissue and body fluid samples.

The key piece of evidence that pointed to murder was the contention by Ere Seshaiah that the hyoid bone in Woolmer's neck was broken, a classic sign of strangulation.

On the instructions of Jamaica Deputy Police Commissioner and lead investigator Mark Shields, the bone was removed from the body for further examination and that helped pathologists to reach their conclusion after X-ray and other examinations.

The outcome is a humiliating reversal for the Jamaican police after a sensational public declaration ten weeks ago that the former England all-rounder had been throttled.

It will also fuel criticism of Shields, the former Scotland Yard detective who became the public face of the investigation.

But, he is likely to argue that without the modern techniques and forensic science expertise that he brought to the Jamaican force, the case would have remained a murky and unresolved ''murder'', the report said.

UNI

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