Indian pathologist stands by his report

London, Mar 29 (UNI) The Indian origin pathologist, who conducted the first autopsy on Bob Woolmer defended his report amid rumours that it was flawed and the Pakistan coach died of natural causes.

Jamaican police were to order a second postmortem to dismiss claims that the first one was botched, 'The Times' had reported.

Ere Sheshaiah, an Indian who moved to Jamaica 12 years ago, spoke out against the speculations and said he did not make any mistake in concluding that Woolmer was strangled.

''I did it to the best of my ability. We did our best,'' he told NDTV.

Sheshaiah has faced strong criticism from other local pathologists because he initially concluded that the cause of death was ''inconclusive''.

Garfield Blake, the head of the Jamaican Association of Clinical Pathologists, questioned the report saying, ''The final conclusion of this being a manual strangulation, I would not expect the first word to be 'inconclusive.' Jamaica DCP Mark Shields, who's leading the investigations, also confirmed for the first time yesterday that there were no marks on Woolmer's neck.

Shield's latest statement marks a growing distance from his earlier stand when he said there were ''very clear evidence of murder'' that he was yet to disclose.

Shields now called lack of marks ''unusual'' in a strangulation case, but added: ''There are circumstances surrounding this one which render it not unusual.'' It took Jamaican police almost four days to unearth that Woolmer died of ''asphyxiation'' due to ''manual strangulation''.

Meanwhile, Shields also said it was a ''pretty inaccurate'' claim made by Pakistan team spokesman Pervez Mir that their players had been officially cleared of Woolmer's murder.

Shields said nobody, including the hundreds of people who were in and around the hotel when Woolmer was killed, have been ruled out because the investigation was in an early stage and could go on for months.

UNI