By BBC - Caribbean
April 30, 2007
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| Pakistan's cricket coach Bob Woolmer, who died of strangulation earlier this year, was also poisoned, a BBC investigation has learned. |
The results of toxicology tests mean it now seems certain the ex-England player was rendered helpless before being strangled, the Panorama programme sayst.
Woolmer's murder in March during the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies cast a shadow over the tournament. |
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| His remains were flown back to his home in Cape Town in South Africa on Sunday. |
| The casket, which had been sealed in a large wooden crate, arrived on board a commercial flight to Cape Town's International Airport from Jamaica. |
| He was found dead in his Kingston hotel on 18 March, the day after his side lost to Ireland in the World Cup. |
| A post-mortem examination said he had been strangled. |
| On 20 April the inquest into the death was postponed because the coroner was advised there had been "recent and significant developments." |
| Now an investigation by BBC current affairs programme, Panorama, has learned that a toxicology report on Woolmer's body shows that there was a drug in his body that would have incapacitated him. |
| The final results of the report are due to be given to Jamaican police next week. |
Some 30 detectives are investigating Woolmer's death.
"Those tests will show there was a drug in his system that would have incapacitated Mr Woolmer," Panorama's Adam Parsons says.
"It now seems certain that as he was |
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| being strangled, he'd already been rendered helpless - leaving him unable to fight back. |
| "The specific details of that poison are now very likely to offer a significant lead to finding his murderer." |
| The policeman leading the murder investigation, Mark Shields, told Panorama that it is "difficult and it's rare" for one man to strangle another. |
| "A lot of force would be need to do that. Bob 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. |
| "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.". |
| Family spokesman Gareth Pyne-James told the Associated Press news agency that Woolmer's funeral in South Africa would be a private ceremony. . |
| "Arrangements have been made and the family will decide whether it's going to be an interment or cremation," Theo Rix, from a local funeral home, told Reuters news agency. |
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