NEWS

Pakistan team makes London stop

By Jim Loney
March 25, 2007 20:51 IST

Pakistan's cricket World Cup team stopped off in London on Sunday ahead of their scheduled return home, leaving behind the body of their coach Bob Woolmer and a murder mystery.

Their plane from Kingston to Montego Bay the night before was delayed for an hour over security checking but the party arrived mid-morning in London, where they were expected to spend most of the day before completing the long journey home.

- The Bob Woolmer murder story

Sky television pictures showed the party looking grim-faced within Heathrow airport as they collected their baggage before heading to a nearby hotel.

Jamaican police had quizzed Inzamam, assistant coach Mushtaq Ahmed and manager Talat Ali in Montego Bay about three hours before the team was due to leave the island to clear up "ambiguities" in previous statements, but then said the team was free to go.

"There is nothing to suggest that any of them are a suspect at this stage," deputy police commissioner Mark Shields said at a news conference in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, on Saturday.

The murder of Woolmer, 58, by strangling last Sunday has rocked the World Cup and completely overshadowed the action.

He was discovered unconscious in his Kingston hotel room and pronounced dead later that day in hospital. Police confirmed they were treating the death as murder on Thursday. 

A coroner ordered Woolmer's body held in Jamaica pending an inquest, the timing of which was uncertain.

The killing has become a genuine whodunit complete with rampant speculation that match-fixing may have been involved. The powerful Pakistanis made an early exit from the tournament with a stunning loss to unheralded Ireland.

The seven-week World Cup culminates in the Barbados final on April 28.

(Additional reporting by Richard Sydenham in Montego Bay)

Jim Loney
Source: REUTERS
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