Shields goes defensive on drug theory

Mark Shields, the deputy police commissioner in Jamaica, on Monday emphatically said his investigators have not concluded that Woolmer was drugged.

“No results and we have NOT confirmed anything,” the former Scotland Yard policeman said in a text message to The Associated Press from his cell phone. “Work is ongoing.”

Shields said toxicology tests were done in Jamaica and sent with British police officers to a government-owned laboratory in their country, The Forensic Science Service, to be “independently verified.”

Shields has not yet heard back from the British laboratory. In a brief telephone interview with AP, he would not discuss whether the toxicology tests indicated the presence of a drug that could have incapacitated Woolmer.

“We wouldn’t comment on ongoing cases,” lab spokeswoman Laura Mackin said Tuesday. “We can confirm that we’ve got (the tests), but other than that, until there’s some kind of conclusion, we wouldn’t talk about the work that we’re doing with the police.”

The BBC’s Panorama programme did not identify the drug or the source of its information, and said toxicology tests were due to be given to Jamaican police next week. In London, Scotland Yard said it has no information and that the investigation and all inquiries are being handled by police in Jamaica.

Shields has said in the past that foreign investigators would examine theories that Woolmer may have been drugged. He said that would have made it easier to strangle a man as large as Woolmer, a former England test batsman.

In an earlier interview with AP Television News, Shields said reported friction over religion in the Pakistan team was not a focus of the homicide probe.

–ANDREW O. SELSKY