The police allowed the team to go home to avoid diplomatic crisis but are working to ensure that they return in case the investigation demands.
KINGSTON/LONDON: The policeman investigating Robert Woolmer’s murder has said he let the Pakistani players go home to prevent a diplomatic row. Mark Shields, Jamaica’s deputy police commissioner, said he was ‘powerless’ to stop the team from leaving, but that he is working with diplomats to secure their return if needed.
According to The Guardian, two Pakistani players told Jamaican police that Woolmer had a blazing row with a Mumbai-based bookmaker on Saturday night. “Woolmer said he had just thrown a bookie out of his room. He didn’t give any reasons,” a Jamaican government official said.
Detectives are poring over CCTV footage to find out who went into Woolmer’s room from the time he returned to the hotel till the time his body was found the next morning.
Records of every door key card at the hotel are also being studied. “We have not managed to eliminate anybody,” said Shields. “Everybody at the moment is a witness, but we do not have more suspicion about one person over another.”
Two Pakistani diplomats – Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri and Shahid Ahmad – who flew into Jamaica at the behest of the Jamaican minister for national security, were shown the scene of crime on Sunday night.
“Our objective is to provide all necessary cooperation to the Jamaican government,” Chaudhri told The Times of London. There is no extradition treaty between the two countries, but investigating officers hope that if they need to question the Pakistani players again they would be allowed to.
Pakistan’s operations manager, Asad Mustafa, and biokineticist Murray Stephenson, the two members of the squad who had stayed back, are also likely to leave. “We don’t know how long the entire process will take, so we have decided to leave as soon as possible,” Mustafa said. Stephenson had been authorised by Woolmer’s wife, Gill, to take the body back to South Africa.
The focus now shifts to the coroner’s inquest. The inquest depends upon the release of the histology and toxicology reports. The reports generally take a day to be prepared, but the pathologist is being extra careful this time.
During the inquest, the coroner, Patrick Murphy, will look into the evidence gathered by police so far in the presence of a jury. Police meanwhile are converting the CCTV tapes into a 3D format. The process is necessary because it could help identify and create a proper model of the killer’s face.
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