Jamaican police were questioning and fingerprinting every member of the Pakistan cricket team yesterday over the “suspicious” death of their coach, Bob Woolmer.

As his widow said for the first time that she could not rule out murder, an American pathologist arrived in Kingston to conduct a second postmortem examination.

Febrile speculation over how Woolmer died intensified with local media reporting that he had been strangled, and that a bone in his neck had been broken.

Mark Shields, the Deputy Police Commissioner in Kingston and former Scotland Yard detective, who said on Tuesday that Woolmer’s death was “suspicious”, could not guarantee that the Pakistan team would be allowed to leave Jamaica on Saturday, their scheduled departure date after being knocked out of the World Cup.

Mr Shields said last night that he hoped to have a report from the second pathologist within hours and that there were “no suspects yet”.

The Jamaica Gleaner newspaper quoted an unnamed, high-ranking police officer yesterday as saying: “We are now treating this as a homicide. A bone in the neck, near the glands, was broken, and this suggests that somebody might have put some pressure on it.”

The Jamaica Observer, citing unnamed sources, reported that there were marks on Woolmer’s throat and that bones in the lower face were broken.

Police denied that a murder investigation was under way. “We made it very clear in our statement on Tuesday that we are treating this as a suspicious death and suspicious means that we rule out nothing,” Karl Angell, a spokesman, said.

But rumours and conspiracy theories have mushroomed, not only in Jamaica but also around the world, particularly after the former Pakistan cricketer Sarfraz Nawaz alleged that Woolmer had been “bumped off” because he was about to expose a match-fixing scandal.

Woolmer, 58, was found unconscious in the bathroom of his Kingston hotel on Sunday morning, hours after Pakistan had been knocked out of the competition by Ireland, one of the greatest upsets in the tournament’s history. P. J. Mir, the Pakistan team’s spokesman, confirmed that the players were being questioned one by one.

But Talat Ali, the team manager, said: “The impression created by the media is that the Pakistan team is under suspicion but that is not true. We are being interviewed by the police but a lot of people are being interviewed.”

Woolmer’s widow, Gill, initially dismissed rumours of foul play, but said yesterday that she could no longer rule it out.

“Some of the cricketing fraternity, fans, are extremely volatile and passionate about the game and what happens in the game, and also a lot of it in Asia, so I suppose there is always the possibility that it could be [murder],” she told Sky Sports from her home in Cape Town. “It fills me with horror. I just can’t believe that people would behave like that or that anyone would want to harm someone who has done such a great service to international cricket.”

When asked about the police’s use of the word “suspicious”, Mrs Woolmer said: “I don’t really know. It does suggest that there might be foul play.” She said that her husband was “very depressed” after Pakistan’s shock defeat, but she ruled out the possibility of suicide. “He would never, ever.”

Woolmer’s younger son, Russell, 24, a graphic designer who lives in Cape Town, said: “We are waiting to hear anything further from Mark Shields, who raised the possibility with my mother that there could have been foul play involved. That was why my mother said she had to accept there was a possibility my father had been murdered.

“I am just hoping that my father had a heart attack and that nothing worse happened to him.”

Detectives continued to scour Woolmer’s 12th-floor room in the Pegasus Hotel for clues as to how he died. They were also believed to be examining closed-circuit television footage from a camera near the room. Mr Shields said that results from the first pathology report were inconclusive.

“We’re waiting for further information from the [second] pathologist before making any more statements.”

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