Police to say Woolmer died of natural causes: reports

[King]

Jamaican police are to announce next week that Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer died of natural causes and was not murdered as they had initially stated, according to Britain's Daily Mail. More...

[King]

What a farce and waste of time. On another note, Dhondy our resident doctor had sent me a PM way back when they released the photos of Woolmer's body and clearly said the investigation team screwed up the case. Hats off to Dhondy on this one, his analysis were bang on and proves he is way capable than the doctors that were involved in the investigation of this case. Hats off to ya Dhondy :rock:

[Dhondy]

Grievous errors by the pathologist and police chief Mark Shields, resulting in enormous heartache for Woolmer's family and Pakistani players, who were put through the grinder for nothing. Particularly puzzling was Shield's decision to turn down a second autopsy by an independent pathologist. He'd be hard pressed to explain this one away. A sad case of sensationalism winning over common sense.

[King]

BTW you had mentioned Woolmer was looking pretty unwell even before this happened. How could you figure out just by looking at him on TV?

[Dhondy]

Yes, I was worried about his health several months before he died, Ravi. He just didn't look well. When people suffer, you can see it on their faces. Sallow complexion, a constant look of fatigue, piling on weight (in his case) or losing too much weight. He was a sitting duck for a coronary. BTW, this ain't the end of the matter, unfortunately. People will now speculate that Jamaican police have taken this line because (1) they were unable to find the murderer, and (2) because of pressure from ICC to rid cricket of its sullied image as a result of the affair.

[King]

"Natural Death" sounds so much better than proof less strangulation, venom, champagne, using a towel to strangulate, death out of tussle et al. I think "Natural Death" suits the instance more than the rest.

[Dhondy]

Unfortunately, the pathologist who did the autopsy was an Indian, working in Jamaica. Pakistanis will seize on this as some kind of conspiracy theory to denigrate their team. There is a bigger shock awaiting them though. The International Court for Arbitration of Sports is likely to adjudicate that the two Pakistani bowlers were guilty of doping and slap two-year bans on them, starting from the day of the verdict.

[King]

Is that right? Where did you read that Dhondy? I'm sure they will leave enough loop holes for PCB to appeal against the verdict. Then starts the bureaucracy and endless legal work. Our justice system is screwed up in all walks of life.

[Dhondy]

There will be no appeals this time, Ravi. There is nothing in the press about this yet. There's enough information out there, and precedence from past verdicts to predict which way this one will go.

[Dhondy]

Here are some past arbitrations of the CAS. Mary Decker Slaney- banned in 1999 by IAAF for high levels of testosterone in blood. Appealed to CAS. Punishment upheld. Andrea Raducaan- Won all round gymnastics gold at Sydney 2000, and then tested positive for pseudo-ephedrine, a cold relief medication given to her by the team doctor. The IOC took away her medal. Raducan appealed to CAS, who upheld her punishment. Danilo Hondo- German cyclist, banned in 2005 for illigeal substance Carphedon found in his blood. Appealed to CAS- ban upheld. Incidentally Hondo challenged the appeal under a little known Swiss law. Didn't do him any good. CAS judgments are final. Two other "inadvertent" doping offences which never made it to CAS, but was dealt with by the IAAF, were that of British 400 m sprinter, Mark Richardson, and German runner Dieter Baumann, both of whom tested positive for nandrolone in 1999 and were cleared by the respective national bodies on the grounds that they unknowingly took the substance. IAAF overturned the verdicts and re-imposed the ban. There was no appeal to CAS. It would have failed. The same thing happened with Dougie Walker, British 200 m sprinter. British Olympic committee exonerated him, but IAAF reimposed the ban. No appeal. Finally, Jerome Young, US 400 m athlete, tested positive 1n 1999, four years before he won a World championship gold, but the US athletics administrative body, USTAF did not tell the IAAF until after the event. It became a very complicated case, but ultimately, in 2004, CAS held him guilty of the offence, and stripped him of the 4x400 relay gold he won at the Sydney Olympics. Just to summarize, in my knowledge, CAS has never ruled in favour of an athlete in a doing offence, intended or unintended. These two would be the first, if that happened.

[beetle]

Chief Mark Shields for oscars....what a joker!