Barbara Gayle, Staff Repoter

In Jamaica, a coroner is a resident magistrate, appointed under the Coroner's Act, to conduct investigations into the deaths of persons which occur within his or her jurisdiction, where there is reasonable cause to suspect that the deaths are violent or unnatural.

Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas announced on Friday that a coroner's inquest is to be held into last week Sunday's mystery death of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan cricket team coach.

Woolmer, 58, died at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Mona, from what the police said was asphyxia caused by manual strangulation when he was attacked in his hotel room at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston.

He was found unconscious on the floor of his room.

The fact that the authorities have decided to hold an inquest into the death indicates that there is uncertainty as to who committed the murder.

Commissioner Thomas is reported to have ordered that the inquest be held "as soon as possible". The Coroner's Act does not specify within what time frame a coroner's inquest should be held, but it does indicate that it should be done with dispatch.

Speedy inquest

The Woolmer inquest could be one of the few instances in which a coroner's inquest has been held reasonably quickly in keeping with the law in Jamaica, as there have been instances, especially in the case of fatal shootings by the police, where they have taken years to be held, if they were held at all.

A jury of not less than five persons, directed by the Coroner for Kingston, is to hear evidence and determine how, when and where Mr. Woolmer came by his death and determine who is criminally responsible, the police having already satisfied them-selves after an autopsy, that Mr. Woolmer was murdered.

The coroner also ordered that Mr. Woolmer's body remain within this jurisdiction until the inquest has been completed. Section 18 of the Coroner's Act states: "It shall not be necessary upon any inquest for the coroner or the jury to view the body, but this provision shall not preclude the coroner from requiring the exhumation of the body for the purpose of viewing and further examining the same, if in his opinion it is expedient so to do."

Exhumation can be ordered particularly in circumstances where the majority of the jurors sitting on the inquest are of the view that the cause of death has not been satisfactorily explained by the evidence of the medical practitioner or other witnesses brought before them.

If the jury's verdict is that person or persons are criminally responsible, the jury has the power to name the person or persons.

Ruling

If the jury cannot name anyone, then the depositions taken at the inquest will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Kent Pantry, Q.C., for him to examine the file and make a ruling if person or persons should be charged.

A majority verdict can be accepted at a coroner's inquest.

Section 7 of the Coroner's Act gives the police the authority to "at once notify" the coroner where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a person has died either a violent, or an unnatural death, or has died a sudden death, of which the cause is unknown.

The police, the law states, must conduct investigations into the circumstances relating to such deaths, and then the superintendent of police in charge of the parish where the death occurred, must forward the report to the coroner.

Although the Coroner's Act makes it compulsory for the report to be forwarded to the coroner, that does not preclude the police from submitting statements to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who can also examine the statements and decide whether someone should be charged, or submit the file to the coroner for an inquest to be held.

In cases where a jury, in handing down its verdict, names someone as being criminally responsible for murder or manslaughter, the coroner will issue a warrant for the arrest of the person and that person will have to stand trial in the circuit court.