Woolmer case: Coroner rules out testimony through video-conferencing

LONDON: The coroner, in charge of late Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer's murder inquest, has ruled out the possibility of testimony submission of witnesses through video conferencing.

According to the Times, the coroner Patrick Murphy and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Kent Pantry, will meet early this week to finalise which witnesses will be required to give live evidence at the inquest.

"Every single witness will be questioned directly, no testimony submission of any witness through video link will be entertained," said Pantry, who will attend the inquest with two of his officers.

The list of witnesses is likely to include members of the Pakistan World Cup bound team, who left Jamaica within days of  the Englishman's murder.

Meanwhile, adding a new jigsaw in the high profile investigation, the scientists at the Government Forensic Laboratory in Kingston has supported the British media theories that late gizmo-freak coach was first poisoned and then manually strangled.

However, the Jamaica police deputy commissioner Mark Shields has not confirmed the reports, saying, "It would be totally  inappropriate on my part to comment on any toxicology test results, but we have some encouraging results back and we will require further analysis and investigation of them."

He has however, confirmed that closer scrutiny of CCTV footage from the 12th floor of the Pegasus Hotel has been completed in London by the Scotland Yard specialists.

"I now have some of the results, which are excellent and give us a clearer picture of people's movements within the Pegasus Hotel and elsewhere," Shields said, adding, "we will get some form of breakthrough and therefore a suspect will emerge."

The discovery of poison believed to be 'aconite', if confirmed, would add credibility to theories that 114kg weight Woolmer was in a weakened state and therefore he was unable to fight back before he was fatally overpowered by a mystery attacker.