Jamaican Police Deputy commissioner Mark Shields, who led the investigation into Bob Woolmer's death, has blamed the Kingston pathologist's postmortem report for treating it as 'murder'.
"We have to go with what the pathologist gives, and if I'd ignored it and it had turned out to be true I would have been lambasted for not treating it seriously," Shields, who faces criticism for his handling of the case, was quoted as saying by the Sunday Times.
The former Scotland Yard detective said the police, however, due to lack of evidence to support the postmortem report, later went about proving that the Pakistan cricket coach was not murdered.
"Usually we investigate a murder and we look for suspects but on this occasion, because of the lack of evidence to support the pathologist what we've done is gone out to prove it's not a murder," he said.
Police had launched murder investigation when pathologist Dr Ere Seshaiah reported that Woolmer had died due to "asphyxiation as a result of manual strangulation" after citing the cause of death as inconclusive in his initial autopsy report.
Shields had said he was "100 per cent certain" that Woolmer had been strangled to death.
British pathologist Dr Nat Carey examined the postmortem report and photos to conclude that it was more likely that the bruising in Woolmer's neck was the result of the postmortem.
British media on Saturday reported that the Jamaican Police was set to announce after two-and-half months of futile probe that they would no more treat Woolmer's death as a murder.
Seshaiah, on his part, said: "I can't comment. I didn't get any report."
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