Scotland Yard to probe Woolmer's death

SYDNEY, March 22: Detectives from London's Scotland Yard are going to investigate the death of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer in a Jamaica hotel room.

Two detectives from Scotland Yard are expected to reach Jamaica before the end of this week to help in investigating the mysterious death of Woolmer, Australia's The News media group reported.

Woolmer held a British passport.

Mark Shields, Jamaica's deputy commissioner of police, who has taken personal charge of the investigation into the case, is also originally from the Scotland Yard.

He was a member of the city of London Police Special Branch, of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch and of the National Criminal Intelligence Service's drug and organised crime unit.

He is currently on a three-year contract with the Jamaican government.

Woolmer was found dead in his room at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel on Sunday morning a day after Pakistan's shocking loss to Ireland in a cricket World Cup Group B match, which sent the subcontinental powerhouse crashing out of cricket's showpiece event being held in the West Indies for the first time.

He was found in a pool of blood with vomit and faeces in his bathroom in room 375 on the 12th floor of the hotel.

The news has shaken the cricket community across the world with speculations rife that he might have been killed.

Jamaica media quoted high ranking officials in that country as saying that fresh evidence have surfaced suggesting that Woolmer was strangled to death in his hotel room here between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

"A bone in the neck, near the glands, was broken, and this suggests that somebody might have put some pressure on it," a high-ranking Jamaican police official, who was not named, told the Jamaica Gleaner.

Former Pakistan fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz has said that Woolmer might have been killed by the betting mafia after Pakistan's shock ouster.