Three members of the Pakistani cricket World Cup squad were briefly questioned by Jamaican police investigating the murder of coach Bob Woolmer, then permitted to leave the island with the rest of the team.
Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, team manager Talat Ali and assistant coach Mushtaq Ahmed were asked yesterday by Jamaican investigators to detail their activities before Woolmer’s strangling in his Kingston hotel room, squad spokesman Pervez Jamil Mir told reporters.Mysterious slaying
Mir said investigators probing the grisly murder asked “general questions about their movements, what they were doing and what time they went to bed” on the night before Pakistan’s national coach was found dead following a humiliating loss.
“There was nothing extraordinary. The police just wanted to fill in a couple of blanks,” Mir said, adding that the three men were questioned in their hotel rooms in Montego Bay for about ten minutes each.
After being questioned, Ali told AP Television News that he and the rest of the Pakistani team wanted to assist Jamaican investigators solve Woolmer’s mysterious slaying. “We want to help the police. Bob was one of us,” he said.
The questioning of the three squad members came shortly before most of the team were expected to depart the Caribbean island a day after submitting DNA samples to police. Pakistan Cricket Board operations manager Asad Mustafa and trainer Murray Stevenson had agreed to stay in Jamaica to look after Woolmer’s interests.
At a press conference at Kingston’s Jamaica Pegasus Hotel last evening, where Woolmer was murdered, Jamaican Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields described the questioning of the three team members as standard police procedure.
“They have answered any ambiguities and unanswered questions,” Shields told reporters. He would not disclose further details.
Pakistani diplomat Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, who was dispatched to Jamaica from Pakistan’s Embassy in Washington to assist investigators, said the “traumatised” cricket side was prepared to travel home.
“The team is free,” he said. “They were traumatised, and we’re all satisfied that they have co-operated fully with Jamaican authorities.”
Woolmer’s body will stay in Jamaica pending a coroner’s inquest.
Mystery has swirled around the murder of Woolmer, an affable 58-year-old Englishman who was found strangled on March 18 in his Kingston hotel room.
The International Cricket Council has said it will investigate whether match-fixing was a motive for the slaying.
The murder came a day after Woolmer’s powerhouse squad was upset by relative lightweight Ireland in its World Cup debut, preventing Pakistan from advancing past the first round.
Police have urged witnesses to come forward and have not identified any suspects.
Speculation within the global cricket fraternity has focused on everyone from crazed fans to a gambling mafia and disgruntled Pakistani team members.
Illegal gambling
A writer co-authoring a book with Woolmer has denied a claim by former Pakistan fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz that Woolmer, a former player for England and coach for South Africa, was killed because he was writing a book that would expose illegal gambling in the sport.
Ivo Tennant was the co-author of the coach’s autobiography and its planned sequel.
“I can state that he had no intention of writing or publicising any such detail in either this or his book on coaching and sports science, which will be published in June,” Tennant wrote in a story published yesterday on The Times of London Web site.
Shields said more than one person may have killed Woolmer in his hotel room and police are reviewing security camera video. Whoever murdered the coach entered his room without force, suggesting Woolmer may have known his killer or killers.
