From rxpgnews.com
Woolmer received poisoned champagne from bowling coach: report
By IANS,
May 10, 2007 - 10:36:22 PM
Islamabad/New Delhi, May 10 - A Pakistan-based TV channel claimed Thursday that two champagne bottles reportedly mixed with poison were given to murdered Pakistani cricket coach Bob Woolmer by bowling coach Mushtaq Ahmed, but officials said this did not make him a suspect.
ARY TV quoted Pervez Mir, Pakistan's media manager for the World Cup, as saying Ahmed had received the bottles from an unidentified individual and passed them on to Woolmer.
According to Mir, Pakistani team manager Talat Ali was a witness to the exchange.
ARY TV said Ali and Pakistan Cricket Board chief Nasim Ashraf declined to comment on the incident.
Mir also said Woolmer was a beer drinker and rarely touched champagne.
'As far as I know Woolmer was not a champagne drinker,' Mir added.
Ahmed, a former leg spinner, is an activist of the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic religious outfit. Former skipper Inzamam-ul Haq had been criticised for taking Ahmed as a bowling coach.
Mir later told CNN-IBN: 'There were two bottles given to Mushtaq, but he doesn't drink. So he sent them to Woolmer. Mushtaq cannot be looked on as a suspect. Gifting of champagne doesn't mean anything.'
British media reports have said a rare pesticide was mixed with the champagne bottles that were recovered from Woolmer's hotel room.
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