Salman Butt
Pakistan’s suspended skipper Salman Butt is facing a ban for seven years from international cricket while the other two involved Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir could be punished with a ban for two years after the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) tribunal’s hearing in Doha, Qatar.
Butt was likely to be banned and slapped with a heavy amount of money. A well placed source said that the way things were going for him including the frequent change of lawyers, he didn’t seem in a position to plead against the match fixing allegations made on him.
“The ACU has put forth a long list of evidences against Butt” the source said. The source also quoted that the fact that Butt was captain and responsible for the conduct of the team would subject him to the longest ban amongst the three.
The source also confirmed that Md. Aamir and Md. Asif were likely to escape with 2 year bans for spot fixing. “The two pacemen are in a position to plead that they just did what the skipper ordered them to do and apparently they were more co-operative with the ACU” the source said.
The source said the ICC claims to have plenty of evidence including extended video footage from the News of the World tabloid which was the first one to break open the scandal with Majhar Majeed, the Pakistani bookie and the other three Pakistani players involved in spot fixing.
The trio was provisionally suspended from international cricket by the International Cricket Council early in September this year after it was evident that Majeed had bribed them to intentionally bowl no-balls at Lord’s during their 4th Test with England.
Butt’s position appears to be the weakest in this case and hence all the 3 prominent lawyers who initially agreed to represent him in this case have quietly moved away from it because of which Butt has to look out for new lawyers time and again.
As of now, Butt’s lawyer is Yasin Patel, a lawyer of Indian origin in London who is representing him and pleading for Butt to get the minimum punishment for him. The source also said that the best the suspended captain could pray was for Yasin Patel to convince the ICC tribunal in Doha to reduce the punishment on Butt from seven years.
“It would be way better than being completely banned for life from International cricket just like former captain Salim Malik was in the year 2000 by the Justice Qayyum tribunal. This meant that Malik was forced to totally break all his links with cricket” he concluded.
Tags: ACU, Anti-Corruption Unit, Cricket, Doha, ICC, International Cricket, Match Fixing, Pakistan, Qatar, Salman Butt, Spot Fixing
