Spot-fixing Case: Fans of Cricketers protests to vent anger in Karachi

The families of jailed Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir might have refused to believe that the duo were involved in corruption but the fans held protests to vent their anger at the latest shame to befall Pakistan cricket.

"It is shameful what these players have done. The entire nation had faith in them and revered them for their performances and talent and they let the entire nation down with their greed," a angry fan said at a protest rally in Karachi`s Gulberg area.

"They have let us down and left a stigma on our cricket. In future all our players will be under suspicion which is sad," Aqeel Ahmed, one of protesters said.

Hundreds of club cricketers and fans joined the protest carrying placards and banners denouncing Butt, Amir and Asif.

Shaharyar Khan, a budding club cricketer, said the punishments handed out to the three players were not enough and they should also be punished in Pakistan also.

"We don`t want to see them again in Pakistan cricket. Amir is as guilty as the other two they let us down," he said.

Television channels showed footage of similar protests being held in Lahore and Multan with one protester who was a Pakistani Canadian citizen expressing anguish over the shame and embarrassment overseas Pakistanis would now have to face.

But in Lahore, the families of Butt and Amir maintained they were innocent.


Butt`s sister Khadija told reporters outside her home that her brother had been trapped and that he was innocent.

"He has been framed we know him well he has never done any fixing. We are confident that God will see justice prevails and everyone will know the truth," said Khadija. Butt`s father Zulfiqar Butt wept profusely but insisted his son was innocent and had been framed.

"I will address a press conference and reveal the truth. There is no evidence against my son yet he has been punished for something he has not done. We will keep on pleading his innocence," he said.

The family also announced that they had postponed the wedding of Khadija which was to be held in December. Ironically, the family also had to witness the birth of Butt`s second son the same day the jury in Southwark Crown Court in London held the three players guilty of spot-fixing.

Amir`s brother Ejaz sat by weeping parents` side as they refused to believe their son was guilty of corruption. "He is young and immature. But we are confident that justice will be done. He has suffered the most and we feel for him," Ejaz said.

He said time will tell that his brother had nothing to do with the spot fixing scandal.

Amir`s mother insisted her son was just a child and was forced to obey his captain`s orders.

"What else could he do? A fine would have been enough he had put himself at the mercy of the court and the judge should have shown some mercy," she said.

But many former players and analysts expressed fear that the worst was yet not over for Pakistan.

Pakistan`s former captain Moin Khan felt more revelations were likely to be made in future in the case.

"I fear there is still more to come out. Let us hope for the best. But I also blame the Pakistan team management that went to England last year for this mess," he said.

Moin said the management should have acted swiftly in England to stop corrupt players from shaming Pakistan cricket. "Why was Mazhar Majeed allowed to freely mix with the players. What was the security manager and other officials doing."

Former captain Aamir Sohail said the spot fixing trial could have opened more secrets but it had reached its logical conclusion.

"The players were convicted because of all the information that came out during the trial and showed the dark side of Pakistan cricket which is so sad," he said.

Spot-fixing: Pakistani match-fixers pushed behind bars

Three Pakistan cricketers-Salman Butt, Mohd Asif and Mohd Amir-have been handed jail terms for their involvement in spot-fixing controversy that rocked cricket world in August last year.

This is the first instance of cricketers being jailed for match-fixing offence even though a number of cricketers, including the former India captain Mohd Azharuddin, South African skipper Hansy Cronje, former Pakistan captain Salim Malik were all found guilty of being involved in match-fixing.

Former captain Salman Butt got 2 years and 6 months imprisonment while Asif has been jailed for an year.

Another offender Mohd Amir, 19, would be detained for six months for his involvement in the fixing saga. He was originally sentenced to 6 months' imprisonment but had to revise the term to 6 months of detainment at a juvenile offenders' institution.

Bookie Mazhar Majeed has been given 2 years and 8 months jail term by the Southwark Crown

While giving the verdict Judge Jeremy Cook said that the offences were so severe that only imprisonment would suffice.

The three players were also ordered to pay up the prosecution cost of the case. While Butt was asked to fork out 30,937 pounds, Asif and Amir were told to pay 8,120 and 9,389 pounds respectively.

"Now, when people look back at a surprising event in a game or a surprising result or ever in the future there are surprising results, followers of the game who have paid to watch cricket or who have watched cricket on TV will wonder whether there has been a fix or what they have watched was natural," the judge said.

The trio entered the courtroom amid high drama as mediapersons jostled with laymen for seats in what was perhaps the biggest criminal trial involving cricketers and their sentencing ends a year of high drama which has left Pakistan cricket embarrassed.

Butt and Asif were accused of spot-fixing following the infamous Lord’s Test against England in 2010 where they conspired with a bookmaker Mazhar Majeed and fast-bowler Mohammad Amir to bowl no-balls at pre-determined times.

Butt was banned for 10 years, five of which suspended, Asif for seven years, while Aamir was suspended for five years by the Pakistan Cricket Board in earlier disciplinary action against the trio.

Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt, Asif guilty of spot-fixing case

Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were held guilty in the spot-fixing case on Tuesday by a London court, making them the first ever cricketers to have been convicted for on-field corruption.

Salman Butt has been held guilty of conspiracy to cheat and accepting corrupt payments while Mohd Asif has been convicted of conspiracy to cheat.

Though the quantum of punishment has not been announced yet, Butt faces a maximum custodial sentence of seven years.


The judge, Justice Cook, is likely to pronounce the sentence on Thursday.

The jury hearing the trial of the accused will soon also reach a decision on the charges of Asif accepting corrupt payments.

The decision came on the 20th day of the trial at Southwark Crown Court and required 16 hours of deliberation by the jury.

Teen pacer Mohammad Aamir, who was also involved in the conspiracy, did not face trial as he had reportedly pleaded guilty.

Butt and Asif were accused of spot-fixing following the infamous Lord’s Test against England in 2010 where they conspired with a bookmaker Mazhar Majeed and fast-bowler Mohammad Amir to bowl no-balls at pre-determined times.

Butt was banned for 10 years, five of which suspended, Asif for seven years, while Aamir was suspended for five years by the Pakistan Cricket Board in earlier disciplinary action against the trio.

Noted cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle said immediately after today's development that he is happy that the judgments have been delivered quickly.

Reacting to today’s judgment, former ICC chairman Ehsan Mani said that this is the terrible day for him as well as Pakistan cricket. “It’s a confirmation of what we always knew,” Mani added.

Pak cricketers wanted to throw ODIs and T20Is: Bookie

In a bid to settle personal score with the then captain Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan cricketers were ready to throw ODIs and T20 matches and earn a lot of money in that process, a London court heard on Wednesday.

Mazhar Majeed, an agent for several Pakistan players, told an undercover reporter last year that the players wanted Afridi replaced by then-Test captain Salman Butt and were prepared to fix matches to do it, Southwark Crown Court heard.

The court also heard how a shadowy Indian contact offered the agent $1 million (740,000 euros) to ensure Pakistan lost a Test match against England.

The jury in the trial of Butt and fast bowler Mohammad Asif saw video of meetings between Majeed and the News of the World`s investigation`s editor Mazher Mahmood.

Mahmood, a star reporter for Rupert Murdoch`s now-defunct tabloid, was posing as an Indian frontman for a Far East gambling syndicate.

Prosecutors allege Butt and Asif agreed for no-balls to be bowled as part of a spot-fixing betting scam.

The two players have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, and conspiracy to cheat at gambling.

The jury saw covertly-filmed footage of a meeting between the agent and the reporter at a London hotel, at which Majeed told Mahmood he had appeared on the scene at the right time ahead of one-day internationals and T20s between Pakistan and England.

The footage showed Mahmood handing over 140,000 pounds and Majeed counting it out.

"A lot of the boys, they want to f*** up Afridi because he`s trying to f*** up things for them, and he`s the captain of the Twenty20 and one-day," Majeed claimed.


"They all want Butt to be captain... They want to lose anyway."

The agent went on: "The timing you`ve come into is perfect because the one-days and the Twenty20s are about to start.”

"We`re going to be making a hell of a lot of money in the Twenty20s and the one-dayers.”

"Say for example Twenty20. I will tell you the bowlers, how many minimum runs they are going to concede, which is much more than usual. They are going to concede those runs.”

"With the batsmen I`m going to tell you how many, say for the example the two opening batsmen Salman and Kamran (Akmal) for example, you`ve only got 20 overs, they`re going to waste two overs, three overs... The Twenty20s are the easiest."

The jury also saw footage of an earlier meeting in Majeed`s London home, where the reporter recorded the agent on the telephone with an unidentified man in India, discussing deliberately throwing the England vs Pakistan Test match at The Oval, which was under way at the time.

Majeed called his Indian contact and told him: "What offer can you give me for today`s game? Tell me, just give me a figure now, we haven`t got long.”

"There`s a possibility, I`m just telling you that now, they`re talking at least 1.2 (million) -- at least. In dollars."

The prosecution alleged that Majeed and the mystery contact were floating the possibility of Pakistan deliberately losing the game.

Referring to the number of Pakistan players under his wing, Majeed said: "Boss, you know how many I`ve got, you know that they do it. So of course that`s not a problem. But you just give me the figure and I`m going to get back to you. We haven`t got much time. One million, yeah?"

The Indian contact replied: "I give you one (million dollars). One I give you, but has to be a definite game score."

In the event, Pakistan beat England by four wickets later that day.

The court heard a secretly-recorded phone call later that day, in which the agent told the undercover reporter that his players were offering to spot-fix elements of matches for 150,000 pounds.

The agent said they could not understand why he was reluctant to hand over the amount on trust, especially when the usual fee was 250,000 pounds.

Majeed said: "What they`re saying is if this guy gives 150 we`ll give him two brackets (periods of play during which elements can be pre-arranged), whatever he wants, for the next game.”

"They`re not willing to give you anything until you give a large, substantial amount."

The reporter had already paid 10,000 pounds, but the agent said it was "peanuts".

"They (the players) just said to me: why is he not delivering?," Majeed said. He told the reporter that Butt had asked: "What else does he want?"

Majeed and young Pakistan bowler Mohammad Aamer have also been charged with the same offences but are not standing trial alongside Butt and Asif.

Spot-fixing case: Butt agreed to bat maiden over

Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt was implicated in fresh spot-fixing allegations on Thursday as part of a wider betting scam that may involve up to seven of the team's players.

Butt and teammates Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Amir are accused of receiving money to ensure no-balls were deliberately bowled at a specified time in the fourth Test against England at Lord's last year.

The case took a new twist on the second full day of the trial at London's Southwark Crown Court when prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee claimed a tape recording showed that Butt also agreed to bat a maiden over on the final day of the fifth Test at The Oval.

Butt ended up coming to the crease earlier than expected and unwittingly scored a run, the court heard.

An alleged conversation between Butt and his agent Mazhar Majeed, accused of being the middleman in the scam, was read to the jury.

"You know the maiden we were doing in the first over?" Majeed said. Butt allegedly replied: "Yeah," before rejecting a request to bat another maiden in the third over.

"If not party to this corrupt agreement, you might expect Butt to say something to the effect of, 'what are you talking about?'" Jafferjee said.

Jafferjee said Majeed is alleged to have told an undercover reporter working for News of the World, the British tabloid which revealed the scam, that he had four other Pakistan players working for him.

Majeed named the players as bowler Wahab Riaz, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal, and batsmen Umar Akmal and Imran Farhat. Riaz was questioned by police that summer over allegations of spot fixing but wasn't charged.

"These boys are going to be around for years, and I've got the best boys," Majeed is alleged to have told the undercover reporter, posing as a rich Indian businessman who had paid 10,000 pounds ($15,300) to fix part of the match at The Oval.

Jafferjee told the court that Majeed said there had been a "little question mark" about Farhat's potential involvement.

Majeed is alleged to have told the reporter that Butt was "1 million percent trustworthy."

Before the Lord's Test, the reporter and Majeed met in a hotel in London. The jury was shown a covertly filmed video of the reporter handing 140,000 pounds ($215,000) in 50-pound notes to Majeed, who counted out the money on a table in front of him.

Majeed promised the reporter that the 19-year-old Amir and Asif, 28, would deliver three no-balls at specific points in the match.

"To show we are serious I'm going to give you three no-balls. No-balls are the easiest and the clearest," Majeed is alleged to have said.

While Asif bowled deliveries where his foot was only inches past the line - not on it or behind it, which would have been legitimate balls - "the relatively hapless Amir would end up bowling no-balls that, as a seasoned cricket statistician will tell you, were the biggest no-balls he's ever seen," Jafferjee said.

Butt and Asif deny conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments between August 15 and 29 last year. Amir and Majeed aren't required to appear in court.