Jamaican police today confirmed that British-born Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered.

The 58-year-old 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.

At a press conference Lucius Thomas, the Commissioner of Police for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, said that a pathologists report had found that he had been strangled to death.

He said a full murder investigation had been launched and appealed for anybody with any information to come forward.

Earlier in the day it had emerged that the police were questioning and fingerprinting every member of the Pakistan cricket team yesterday over the death.

International Cricket Council chief executive Malcolm Speed said the World Cup would continue.

He said Woolmer’s death had been a “huge shock” for the cricketing community.

Mark Shields, the Deputy Police Commissioner in Kingston and former Scotland Yard detective, who said on Tuesday that Woolmer’s death was “suspicious”, told the press conference that there had been no signs of forced entry into his hotel room and said that officers had not yet established whether more than one person had been in the room at the time he was murdered.

He said: “It would take some force, because Bob was a large man, It would have taken some significant force to subdue him, but of course at this stage we do not know how many people were in the room at the time.

“It could be one or more people involved in this murder.”

Mr Shields confirmed Woolmer had shown no signs of life when he was found in his hotel room, and said there had been no signs of a struggle.

“In these particular circumstances we had to make sure because there were no visible external signs [of his murder],” he said.