.gif)
US federal agents Wednesday raided the Houston offices of the doctor who was with pop legend Michael Jackson when he died last month, officials told AFP.
A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) confirmed that a search with the Los Angeles police was ongoing at the offices of the Armstrong medical clinic in Houston, Texas, where doctor Conrad Murray practices.
Police search office of Jackson's last doctor
Murray was with Jackson at his rented mansion in Los Angeles when the singer collapsed on June 25 and died.
The official coroner's report into the 50-year-old singer's demise has deferred the cause of death, amid speculation that strong painkillers he was believed to be taking may have been to blame.
Suspicion has also focused on a dangerous sedative -- Diprivan -- used to induce unconsciousness in hospital patients ahead of major surgery, which reports say was also found in Jackson's home.
DEA spokeswoman Violet Szeleczky denied Wednesday's intervention in Houston was a raid, but Murray's lawyers insisted they had not been informed.
"This is unexpected to us. We are looking into it. We hope to release a statement about this as soon as we get this information," said Miranda Sevcik, a spokeswoman for the doctor's legal team.
"No-one told us, the DEA didn't tell us, LAPD didn't tell us. Last thing we knew we scheduled a third interview and then this happened. This is unexpected, let's just put it like that."
The DEA however said it was not a raid.
"We did not raid it. What this is is the Los Angeles police department have an investigation and they came to the DEA and they asked us to help them effect a state search warrant here," said Szeleczky.
A statement posted late Tuesday on Murray's website confirmed investigators had asked him for further information and were planning to interview him for the third time.
"The coroner wants to clear up the cause of death, we share that goal," said Ed Chernoff, Murray's attorney.
"We don't have access to the most important information in this case... the toxicology report. We're still in the dark like everybody else."
Murray is currently in Las Vegas, his legal team said and Chernoff insisted that "based on Dr. Murray's minute-by-minute and item-by-item description of Michael Jackson's last days, he should not be a target of criminal charges.
"Dr. Murray was the last doctor standing when Michael Jackson died and it seems all the fury is directed toward him," he said on the website.
"Dr. Murray is frustrated by negative and often erroneous media reports, he has to walk around 24-7 with a bodyguard. He can't operate his practice."
Police have so far not ruled out that Jackson's death could be a homicide.
But the Los Angeles Times said Sunday the case could be hard to prosecute, with five doctors having now been questioned.
"If it is a combination of drugs -- and these drugs... were coming from multiple sources -- the argument can be made that the doctors did not know their patient was doctor-shopping," Vesna Maras, a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, told the newspaper.
