Laptop reveals no clues on match-fixing so far

The Jamaican police investigating the murder of the late Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer have analysed his laptop and have found no evidence so far of match-fixing and betting. Mark Shields, the deputy commissioner of police told a news conference in Jamaica's Pegasus Hotel all possible motives were being considered, as well as match-fixing.

"We have Bob Woolmer's computer," Shields said. "We are looking at what is on the hard drive. We're exploring the possibility of match-fixing, but that's only one line of inquiry."

Woolmer was found unconscious in his hotel room a day after Pakistan's shock defeat to Ireland and Shields said that the police will look into the betting odds for the match. Investigators are also relying on the footage from the hotel surveillance camera, for which Shields pointed that it would be a very time consuming process, having to study the footage frame-by-frame.

With no solid clues emerging from any source yet, Shields added that his team were considering other methods of clinching evidence such as getting DNA samples from all persons who were in the hotel at the time of murder and investigators traveling to other islands to interview players and officials for useful bits of information. The Pakistan players and officials underwent DNA testing and questioning by the police before their departure and all have been cleared of any wrong doing.

"At the end of it, it might be that we might identify a suspect or suspects," Shields said. "The reality as I've said before is that there are many potential suspects in this investigation and even more potential witnesses, and we are nowhere the stage of being able to start naming names in terms of suspects."

Meanwhile, Perviz Mir, the Pakistan team media manager, and Tasnim Aslam, the foreign ministry spokesperson, hit out at all the malicious rumours of match fixing being the primary motive for murder, saying that it had deeply affected the players, already traumatized by the events.