Pakistan Cricketers Found Guilty of Fixing

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif fields the ball during the fourth cricket test match against England at Lord’s cricket ground in London in this August 28, 2010 file photo. Pakistan cricketers Asif and Salman Butt were found guilty on Tuesday of fixing part of a test match against England last year. Former captain Butt and opening bowler Asif were convicted of conspiracy to cheat at London’s Southwark Crown Court, the Press Association reported.      REUTERS/Philip Brown/Files

Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were found guilty by a London jury of spot-fixing. They were found guilty, by a unanimous decision, on the charge of “conspiracy to cheat” and guilty by a 10-2 majority decision on the charge of “conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments.” The sentences will be pronounced by the judge, Justice Cooke, on Wednesday and Thursday; both players will remain on bail until then. The convictions, reached by the jury of the Southwark Crown Court in London after 16 hours and 56 minutes of deliberation, carry jail terms: a maximum prison sentence for the acceptance of corrupt payments is seven years in jail, while “conspiracy to cheat” carries a maximum two-year sentence.

This particular case focused on the Lord’s Test match in August of 2010, when Butt and Asif conspired with teammates Majeed, Amir and other unknown bowlers to bowl pre-determined no-balls during England’s innings. They were exposed by the now defunct British tabloid the News of the World in an undercover sting operation. Majeed was filmed revealing when no-balls would be delivered by the bowlers, video footage of which was played to the jury early in the trial.

The verdicts were handed down almost four weeks after the trial started, on October 4. Butt, wearing a velvet jacket and shirt without a tie, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out and stared at the jury stony-faced. An hour earlier, in a bitter twist of fate, his wife Gul Hassan was understood to have given birth to a second son back in Pakistan. Asif, wearing a grey winter coat in the dock, was equally unmoved and neither player said a word or made any obvious facial expression.

The jury were unable to reach a verdict on the “accepting corrupt payments” charge against Asif, and Justice Cooke immediately retired them to deliberate some more in case they could reach a verdict on that fourth charge, which they did after more than three hours.

The unambiguous nature of the verdict was welcomed by the Metropolitan Police. “All I want to say that this is cheating pure and simple,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Matt Horne. “They let down everyone that bought a ticket and they let down children when they were role models to those very children who are playing such a special game. I think we all look forward to this game being played in its truest spirit as we go forward from these types of issues. I also acknowledge the role that investigative journalism has played in this case.”

Sally Walsh, Senior Lawyer in the Special Crime and Counter-Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif deliberately and knowingly perverted the course of a cricket match for financial gain… This prosecution shows that match fixing is not just unsportsmanlike but is a serious criminal act.

“People who had paid good money to see a professional and exciting game of cricket on the famous ground at Lord’s had no idea that what they were watching was not a true game but one where part of the game had been pre-determined for cash…the jury has decided after hearing all the evidence that what happened on the crease that day was criminal in the true sense of the word.”

The players have already been punished by the International Cricket Council (ICC) after a disciplinary hearing in Doha, Qatar, earlier this year. Each was banned from the sport for at least five years. Butt received a further suspended five-year ban and Asif was handed a further two-year suspended sanction. Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, said after the London verdicts were announced that the jury’s decisions, as well as Mohammad Amir’s own guilty plea, will “have no impact” on the length of the suspensions its own tribunal handed out. All three players have filed appeals against their bans at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

There was further ignominy for the sport of cricket on this day as fellow Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Amir, the teenage Pakistani fast bowler, had pleaded guilty to the same two charges before the trial began. He is now scheduled for what is termed a “Newton Hearing” to decide the quantum of punishment. There is no jury officially present at this type of hearing, but a group of jurors is given permission to sit in and watch if they wish. In addition, it was revealed that there are plans to investigate further matches on Pakistan’s 2010 tour of England.

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