LEAD investigator into the Bob Woolmer death, Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields, along with other officers have been gagged by Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas.

The gag order comes a day after the national security minister, Peter Phillips, announced that a review committee had been set up to look into the investigative techniques and medical practices used in the Woolmer death probe.

Yesterday Shields refused to comment when the Observer asked him to speak on the Woolmer review ordered by Phillips, and instead referred the newspaper to the police’s director of communications, Karl Angell.

Angell, when contacted, said Commissioner Thomas had implemented a ‘strategic communications policy’.

“In an effort not to prejudice the work of the coroner, we are not, at this time, making any comments on the Bob Woolmer affair. It is not a muzzle order,” Angell said.

It was not clear whether recent tit-for-tat comments by Shields and his colleague, Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, had any bearing on the edict laid down by Thomas, but an Observer source claimed that Shields was summoned to the Commissioner’s office in Kingston yesterday and ordered to “keep his mouth shut”.

Thomas on Tuesday said both cops would be reported to the Police Service Commission for their statements which he described as a breach of force regulations.

Since Woolmer’s body was found in his hotel room on March 18, Shields has consistently made announcements and given interviews on the issue, but it was Thomas who announced on Tuesday that the police had closed their investigation as Woolmer had died of natural causes.