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Fatwa from radical group may have killed Woolmer

The revelation that Woolmer was poisoned and strangled in line with the edict of some radical Muslim clerics was made on BBC’s investigative programme Panorama.

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LONDON: The latest dramatic hypothesis explaining Bob Woolmer’s death suggests that his murder was ordered by an Islamic fatwa. The revelation that Woolmer was poisoned and strangled in line with the edict of some radical Muslim clerics was made on BBC’s flagship investigative programme Panorama. The hour-long documentary was telecast on Monday night.

A segment of the programme indicated that Woolmer may have upset some followers of the Tableeghi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary and revivalist movement, within the Pakistan team. PJ Mir, the team’s former media manager, said Woolmer had commented that senior players were more interested in praying than playing.

Recalling an incident, Mir said, "A CD was being played which was a Tabliqhy CD and Bob, who was sitting behind me, said 'why don't you tell them to stop? If they want to listen to that they could on their iPods or personal devices', and he thought that he shouldn't be subjected to all that and I agreed with Bob."

Mir said Woolmer had his apprehensions about the players' dwindling focus on cricket.

"He wasn't particularly pleased when players were going out to say their prayers in the middle of the game.. and a substitute was coming in and then again... and this continued. He was totally against it," he said.

Mir had already attracted a fatwa for publicly asserting that the team’s religious zeal may have been the reason for its poor results. “If Bob has said what I’d said, I think there would have been a fatwa on him as well,” Mir said.

The programme posited that preliminary drug tests showed a substance in Woolmer’s body that would have weakened him enough for someone to overpower and strangle him.

Mark Shields, Jamaica’s deputy commissioner of police who is leading the investigation, told the programme that it would be difficult to strangle a six-foot-two man like Woolmer. “Woolmer was a large man and that’s why one could argue that it was an extremely strong person, or maybe more than one person,” Shields said. “But equally, the lack of external injuries suggests that there might be some other factors and that’s what we’re looking into at the moment.”

The final results of the toxicology tests, expected to be presented to Shields next week, are likely to confirm the preliminary findings, BBC said.

With inputs from Agencies

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