Woolmer poisoned and killed, says BBC, shows tape of a ‘meeting’ in lobby

CCTV footage of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, being aired late tonight by the BBC in its Panorama programme.

CCTV footage of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, being aired late tonight by the BBC in its Panorama programme, shows him standing with two other persons in the Jamaican hotel lobby on the night of his murder after Pakistan’s shocking exit from the World Cup. Pak-based Geo TV said they were both Pakistani journalists, one of whom said the footage was a day old.

According to the BBC, results of the toxicology tests have shown that there was a drug in Woolmer’s body that would have incapacitated him.

“Those tests will show there was a drug in his system that would have incapacitated Mr Woolmer,” Panorama’s reporter Adam Parsons said. “It now seems certain that as he was 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,” he added.

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In the footage, Woolmer is standing at some distance from two men, pointing with his right hand at one of them. One man is dressed in a white shirt and black trousers and the other is in a black dress.

Mark Shields, the deputy police commissioner in Jamaica, told the BBC it would be difficult to strangle a man as large as Woolmer. “A lot of force would be needed to do that,” Shields said. “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.”

But Shields later told AP he has not received toxicology results and said his investigators have not concluded that Woolmer was drugged. “No results and we have not confirmed anything,” he said in a text message to AP from his cell phone. “Work is ongoing.”

BBC 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.

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Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Geo TV claimed that the two persons seen alongside Woolmer in the CCTV footage were both Pakistani journalists — one identified as Majid Bhatti of Geo TV and the other a journalist with the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Speaking to CNN-IBN, Geo TV journalist Majid Bhatti said he was there along with the APP journalist to talk to Woolmer after a reception hosted by Pervez Mir. “Bob was going back to his room after a reception hosted by Pervez Mir,” Bhatti claimed.

He claimed that the footage was taken on the evening of March 16 before Pakistan met Ireland in a crucial qualifying match. “This picture was taken in the lobby near a lift when Bob was headed towards to his room after the reception,” he said.