Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

DNA SAMPLES taken from the Pakistan cricket party did not match items taken from the hotel room of their coach, Bob Woolmer, a local forensic analyst said yesterday.

Sharon Brydson, who is employed to the Government Forensic Science Laboratory, said swabs were taken from 22 members of the Pakistan team which was in Jamaica for the Cricket World Cup.

She said the swabs were compared to several pieces of evidence taken from Woolmer, as well as his hotel room. Ms. Brydson said she received them on March 21, three days after the former England player was pronounced dead.

"I did not observe any of these matching the profile of any items taken from Room 12-374 at the Jamaica Pegasus," Ms. Brydson said.

Result the same

The result was the same when DNA samples from Murray Stevenson, the team's physiotherapist, were analysed.

Ms. Brydson was the lone witness on the 15th day of the coroner's inquest at the Jamaica Conference Centre. She said she examined the DNA of blood stains taken from the bathroom of the hotel room where Woolmer's body was discovered on March 18.

Ms. Brydson said there was a trace of someone else's DNA in the blood stain on the bathroom wall. She added, however, that it could have been there before the Woolmer incident.

Yesterday, coroner Patrick Murphy said Marcia Dunbar, another analyst at the Government Forensic Science Laboratory, had requested that she be present when samples from Woolmer's body are reexamined for traces of cypermethrin.

On Monday, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields asked that the samples be tested by an independent source after differing results from the government lab, the Barbados Forensic Centre and the Forensic Science Service in London.

Ms. Dunbar and toxicologist Patrick Best, at the Barbados laboratory, testified that they found traces of cypermethrin in samples from Woolmer's body and an item from his room.

But British forensic scientist John Slaughter said his team at the Forensic Science Service found no trace of the pesticide. Government pathologist, Dr. Ere Seshaiah, testified that Woolmer's death was caused by asphyxia caused by manual strangulation associated with cypermethrin poisoning.