Pakistan cricketers fly home by AFP

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Event:

ICC World Cup 2006/07

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DateLine: 25th March 2007

 

Reeling from the murder of their coach Bob Woolmer, Pakistan's cricketers flew home from the World Cup on Sunday after Jamaican police interviewed three team members for a second time.

 

The team expressed relief be to leaving Jamaica, where Woolmer was strangled in his hotel room just a day after the team crashed out of the tournament with a shock loss to Ireland on March 17.

 

Nagging rumours of match-fixing in connection with Woolmer's death have cast a further shadow over the sport and the World Cup, which officials insisted had to go on despite the killing.

 

"They clarified a number of points," Jamaica's deputy commissioner of police Mark Shields said after captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, caretaker coach Mushtaq Ahmed and manager Talat Ali were questioned before the Pakistan team departed.

 

"There is nothing to suggest any of them is a suspect at this stage," Shields said.

 

"It was nothing, just one question, nothing special," the 37-year-old Inzamam told Sky News television.

 

All team members were interviewed by police and gave DNA samples and fingerprints. Shields said the team had cooperated fully.

 

"They were never under detention," said Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, the first secretary at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, who flew to Kingston with another diplomat to be briefed about the investigations.

 

Speaking on Saturday at a joint news conference with Shields, he said the team were still traumatised by the death of their 58-year-old coach.

 

"The players are relieved now to be going home," team spokesman Pervez Mir told Sky News before the players departed for Islamabad via London.

 

"The players have been very scared. When something like this happens it's indeed a very scary thing," Mir said, as rumours continued to circulate that the death may have been linked to match-fixing.

 

"Of course it's one of our lines of inquiry," Shields said of the speculation.

 

Shields separately told the London-based Observer newspaper: "One aspect is, what were the odds on Ireland if Ireland won? I understand that they were extremely good if you bet on Ireland."

 

He said he was keeping an open mind, and stressed that investigators had not yet identified any "clear suspects" or made any arrests.

 

Woolmer was a former England international who had coached the Pakistan team since 2004.

 

Jamaican police believe Woolmer may have known his killer or killers. "It's fair to acknowledge that because it was in his hotel room, it may be an associate," said Shields.

 

Authorities in Jamaica, one of the Caribbean nations hosting the World Cup, told Woolmer's family the body would remain on the island until the conclusion of a coroner's inquest to be held as soon as possible.

 

The Woolmer family, as well as Pakistan Cricket Board chief Naseem Ashraf, rejected suggestions the coach may have been killed over fears he would expose match-fixing in a book he was planning to write.

 

Ivo Tennant, the co-author of the proposed autobiography, also dismissed that theory.

 

"I can state that he had no intention of writing or publicizing any such detail in either this or his book on coaching and sports science, which will be published in June," Tennant wrote in The Times newspaper Saturday.

 

Woolmer was coach of South Africa when their former captain Hansie Cronje was bought off by bookmakers in 1996, but was never alleged to have been involved himself.

 

Meanwhile two South Africans with the Pakistani team, physiotherapist Darryn Lifson and trainer Murray Stevenson, said they were staying behind in Kingston.

 

"We promised the family to stay until everything is sorted out," Lifson told AFP.

(Article: Copyright © 2007 AFP)