Woomer died of natural causes: Pathologist

London/Kingston, May 15 (UNI) The mystery surrounding Bob Woolmer's death has deepened with a senior UK Home Office pathologist reportedly rubbishing the autopsy report and concluding that the former Pakistan coach was not strangled but died of natural causes.

Fifty eight-year-old Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room on March 18 a day after his team was ousted of the World Cup with a first round loss to rank outsiders Ireland.

Ever since, conspiracy theories have been flowing in thick and fast even as clueless investigators beat about the bush.

According to 'The Times', reports from the postmortem examination and other material have been examined by Nat Carey, who has decided that the death was not from asphyxiation due to strangulation.

The report, if true, would be a major embarrassment to Jamaican Police deputy chief Mark Shields and his team of investigators who have insisted time and again that the coach was murdered.

Mr Shields was in London last week talking to Scotland Yard, which sent out a team to help the Jamaicans and review the case, and to scientists who were asked to look at samples from the coach's body. The police are waiting for the results of a toxicology report after traces of a herbicide were found in Woolmer's body. The herbicide is used on cricket pitches to keep down weeds and may have been imbibed by Woolmer accidentally.

Meanwhile, there is growing restlessness among Jamaican politicians and local media over the way the police have dealt with the issue.

Derrick Smith, of the Jamaica Labour Party, said: ''The matter has become a global embarrassment for us.'' The 'Jamaica Gleaner' went a step ahead and said ''the now-it-is-and-now-it-isn't spectacle'' has made the murder case a farcical soap opera.

''The toing-and-froing over whether Woolmer -- an Englishman who lived in South Africa and coached the Pakistan team -- was murdered or had died of natural cases is turning the investigation from being a great 'whodunnit' into a farcical soap opera,'' the newspaper said.

UNI