Why Woolmer was naked; Mytery of crucial 15 hours; cut of Mushtaq, Fake name of manager Talat; Rice running between the death peach of Woolmer, Hansie; Role of Don and Mumbai bookies; Who stole  manuscript?

Woolmer died within 24 hours of his team’s shock defeat against Ireland. With the odds at 1 to 25, a punter could have won R1.1-million had he taken a R70 000 bet on Ireland. Only the bravest punters — or those in the know through crooked dealings — would have chanced such a bet.

Two factors are behind the killing: (1) Conspiracy means planned murder and in this cricketer, hotel staff, bookie, Don may be involved. (2) Sudden killing; it may be done suddenly in anger by one or more persons.

 

Woolmer was writing a sedond book. Its manuscript was unfortunately with the Bob in his hotel room. Before death he worried for this. Who stole manuscript?

 

Disgraced former Proteas captain Hansie Cronjé, who died in a plane crash in June 2002, was taped in conversation with a bookie in the UK while on tour to India .

The resulting scandal, the biggest to hit international cricket, led to the King Commission of Inquiry at which evidence led on the operations of cricket betting systems.

 

These included spread betting — a wager on the number of runs, within a spread of, say, 10 runs that a batting side is going to score, which can change as the innings progresses. It can also involve the scores of individual batsmen

 

Lara on fingerprint and DNA test

Police investigating the murder of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer in Jamaica took a DNA sample from West Indies captain Brian Lara, it was claimed today.

Police investigating the murder of Woolmer also took DNA samples from West Indies team manager Clive Lloyd as well as interviewing players from the West Indies, Zimbabwe and Ireland squads.

 

Rice running between the death peach of Woolmer, Hansie

Clive Rice, a former South African captain and a contemporary of Bob Woolmer during their playing and coaching days in England, has disclosed that he had acquired the rights for a tell-all book that Cronje was planning in the wake of the match-fixing scandal. Like Woolmer, Cronje was also planning to write a “warts and all” book and had employed Rice to sell it.

"I went to see him six months before he died. He signed over the rights to me. Like Woolmer, he knew a lot more of what was going on. His so-called accident was just a lot cleverer than the one that killed Bob."

Ironically, Woolmer was also working on a book that might have exposed the darker side of international cricket.

Rice says, "Absolutely no doubt" what happened on the 12th floor of the five-star Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, last Sunday night.

 

According to Rice:

Bob knew a lot of what went on during the match fixing scandal in which Hansie Cronje was nailed. Rice found it odd that he was never called as a witness by the King Commission. There were a lot more people involved but the commission fell short in exposing this. Strangely enough it (Judge Edwin King the commission, that sat in Cape Town in 2000) never asked how spread betting works.

 

"We were actually involved in a match in England at the time and Bob and I discussed it.
"He told me a lot that never came out.
"I'm not just talking about other players being involved, but officials too."
Woolmer's violent end by strangulation has also reopened old wounds over Cronje's death in an air crash five years ago.
Pilot error was blamed after the transport plane he regularly traveled in crashed into a mountainside near George in the southern Cape - but Rice says: "I am convinced his death wasn't an accident, and I will continue to believe that until the day I die."

 

Please find the details on the subject in my previous article March 20.

 

Indian investigation authorities of corruption follows King Commission of South Africa
Rice is right. King stop the further investigation after accepting the Conje his crime. Like that Telgi executive of Rs. 30, 000 crores Stamp Scam wanted to be approver for dsclosing the names of his senior political and bureaucrt partners in the scam. but before that CBI court announced its judgement by fining him Rs. 50,000/-.  Hasan Ali racehorse owner' scandal of more than 35,000 crores is now hided under the earth. Bofors scam could not punish any corrupt. Have you heard Pt.Nehru ot Sonia Gandhi, any corrupt politician got sentenced of a single day. Then how can the judge wish be fulfilled who say that corrupt should be hanged on the pole in the public?

 

Threat to family of the late Woolmer

Woolmer’s widow Gill and two sons have had to delay their funeral plans after a coroner refused to allow his body to leave Jamaica until a full inquest has been held.

Coroner Patrick Murphy has ordered that the  body of 58-year-old Woolmer must remain in Jamaica until then.
Russell Woolmer, 24, and 27-year-old Dale have been comforting their mother at the family home in the Cape Town suburb of Pinelands.

As they waited for news of the investigation, several developments added weight to theories suggesting the coach had been killed by a match-fixing hitman.

 

I analyze the match fixing theory in details in my previous articles.

 

Ther was also a news report that the family of the deceased has received threat warning from unknown source so security of the family has been tighten now.

 

Role of Don and Mumbai bookies in the murder of Wooolmer

Meanwhile, detectives in India were closing in on an illicit betting ring and several underworld figures suspected of trying to fix Pakistan’s unexpected defeat by Ireland last weekend. Woolmer had expressed “serious concerns” about Bombay bookies weeks before his death. He was “distressed” when informed the game was a possible target for fixing.

Last night sources in Bombay said detectives there were focusing on illicit betting rings and would pass the information to officers in the Caribbean.

One Bombay bookie claimed India’s most wanted gangster, Dawood Ibrahim, and his mob had attempted to fix the Pakistan-Ireland game.

Millions of pounds exchanged hands in India and Pakistan on the match which saw Pakistan eliminated, it was said.

 

Today on March 25, in Bangalore 15 bookies have been arrested with about 7 lakh cash, laptop and other materials. But police says these are the small fishes.

 

Mushtaq's cut, manager Talat’s fake' name create doubt

Police interviewed the Pakistan captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq, assistant coach Mushtaq Ahmed and team manager Talat Ali at length before the team was cleared to board a flight for home via London. Talat and Inzamam were questioned over why they had separately switched hotel rooms - Talat on the night after the murder.

 

Using the false name Newman, on the night after the murder he moved from the 12th floor to the hotel's suites on the 17th floor. Inzamam had changed to the fifth floor before the murder. When Inzamam was asked about the move, he said he wanted to be with the players. Asked about his move, Talat said: "Because I was scared and everyone was scared."

 

Mushtaq was asked about cuts to his nose face and whether he had gone to hospital. Inzamam denied they were suspects, describing the questioning as necessary formalities.

 

All cricketers had previously provided statements and DNA samples.

All 26 members of the Pakistan World Cup squad have been given DNA tests as police try to match samples uncovered in Woolmer’s hotel room. It has emerged that only people with special permission could get on to the 12th floor of his hotel, the Jamaica Pegasus, in the capital Kingston.

 

Pakistan betting mafia under the scanner

In particular, three key bookmakers - Arshad Pappu, Chotta Shakeel, and Shoaib Khan - who are part of the larger syndicate that controls Pakistan cricket.

All three of them, and many others in this team, operate from Sahiwal and Rawalpindi in the Punjab province. It is this syndicate that many say was involved in the high profile murder of another key bookie Hanif Cadbury.

Cadbury had deposed before the Qayyum Commission in 1999 and had testified giving money to leg spinner Mushtaq Ahmed, the current bowling coach of Pakistan team. The syndicate hit back and threatened him. Cadbury flew to Johannesburg, but the mafia chased him there and he was murdered in broad daylight.

Questions are also being raised on whether Woolmer's murder was linked to the betting scandal that broke just months before the World Cup, i.e., Marlon Samuels and bookie Mukesh Kocchar nexus.

 

No Extreadition treaty

There is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and Jamaica. Two Washington-based Pakistani diplomats arrived in Jamaica over the weekend to aid the police investigation and deal with the fallout.

 

Mytery of crucial 15 hours

 around 7.30pm he walked through the bustling lobby, entered the lift and pushed the button for the 12th floor of the 17-storey, 300-room hotel in the heart of the city's commercial district.

It is not thought that Woolmer left his room - number 12-374 - for the rest of Saturday evening, apparently ordering dinner and a drink from room service about 9pm before turning in for the night.

 

For at 3.12am local time, he pressed the "send" button on his laptop and sent an email to his wife, Gill. In it, he poured out his feelings of disappointment at the result of the Ireland match and dealt with some family matters, but there was nothing to shed any light on what would happen about seven hours later.

 

Later, probably about 10am on Sunday morning, a man or men entered Woolmer's room. There was no sign of a break-in, so police suspect there was a knock on the door and Woolmer let in the man or men, possibly because he knew him or them.

Only the killer or killers know what happened next.

 

Why Woolmer was naked when the maid found him?

"There is no evidence of any sexual element to the murder, suggesting he may have been in the shower or about to take one. Nor was there any sign of forced entry to the room, so what kind of person - or persons - would a naked man, perhaps wrapped only in a towel, have let into his room a member of staff perhaps?

Investigators are questioning every Jamaica Pegasus employee with that in mind. Or someone posing as a member of staff? Or one or more people Woolmer knew well enough to invite into his bedroom early on a Sunday morning?"

The newspaper adds:"Detectives said they are exploring the possibility that the coach may have either let his killer into his room himself, or the killer had their own card or a master card."

Some have said Woolmer was about to blow the whistle on match-fixing and corruption in a book.

On Friday, the media manager of the Pakistan team, P.J. Mir, said Woolmer had told him the only proof copy of the book he was writing had gone missing. But Woolmer's family rejects suggestions his death was linked to match-fixing, as has his British friend Ivo Tennant, an author. "I can state that he had no intention of writing or publicising any such detail in either [his autobiography] or his book on coaching and sports science, which will be published in June," Tennant wrote in The Times.

Woolmer was South Africa's coach in 1996, when the captain Hansie Cronje was paid off by bookmakers.

There has also been a report that Woolmer filed a resignation letter to the Pakistan Cricket Board via email in the hours before he died. "I would like to praise my association with the Pakistan team but now I would like to announce my retirement after the World Cup to live the rest of my life in Cape Town," he wrote.

The email's recipient, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Nasim Ashraf, said Woolmer had been greatly disappointed by his team's loss.

 

CCTV Could provide clues to Woolmer's murderer

Detectives will analyze the use of the key cards to track the movements of people on the floor and will also examine CCTV footage.

 

A source has told the Sunday Express that two cameras covering the lift doors and the stairway leading on to the floor hold the answers to the investigation.

Murder squad officers hope to draw up a shortlist of everyone who was on the floor at the time of the murder using information from the swipe cards and the videotape.

That side of the investigation is going well, but detectives are disappointed they have not been given first-hand evidence from two officers stationed on the floor. There was growing confusion over whether the men were at their posts at the time of the murder.

By Premendra Agrawal

agrawalpremendra@hotmail.com