Hundreds attend Woolmer memorial

Muslims, Christians, Pakistani cricketers and officials of Pakistan Cricket Board observed a minute of silence, lit candles and offered prayers in a memorial today for murdered cricket coach Bob Woolmer.

Some 200 people attended the service for Woolmer at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in the eastern city of Lahore, the home of Pakistani cricket.

Woolmer, 58, was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room on March 18 and pronounced dead at a hospital on the morning after his team’s elimination from the Cricket World Cup in a surprising loss to Ireland.

Jamaican police have blamed Woolmer’s death on strangulation.

“God rest you, Bob, God rest you, and until we meet again, good bye,” said Rev Lawrence Saldanha, the Catholic archbishop of Lahore, who led the prayers for Woolmer.

“Our hurtful condolences and sympathies go out to his mourning wife and relatives. We pray that God may grant them comfort and strength to bear this tragic loss,” Saldanha said as the audience said “amen” after the priest.