Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were convicted
Tuesday of fixing parts of a test match in the most serious corruption
scandal to hit the sport in more than a decade.
Eleven years after
South Africa captain Hanse Cronje was banned for life for taking bribes
from bookmakers, a jury at London's Southwark Crown Court found former
captain Butt and bowler Asif guilty of both counts of conspiracy to
cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments as part of a betting
scam.
The 12 jurors were unanimous in their decision that both
players were guilty of conspiracy to cheat, but could only reach a 10-2
majority verdict on the charges that the pair took money to do so.
The
jury took 16 hours to rule that Butt was guilty of both offenses and
that Asif had deliberately bowled no-balls against England in August
2010. But it needed another three hours to decide by a 10-2 margin that
Asif was also guilty of the more serious charge of accepting payment for
the fix.
Butt, Asif and Fast bowler Mohammad Amir, who had
already pleaded guilty to both charges, could be jailed for up to seven
years when they are sentenced later this week.
"Match-fixing is
not just unsportsmanlike but is a serious criminal act," Crown
Prosecution Service lawyer Sally Walsh said. "The actions of these two
top international players went against everything that was expected from
someone in their positions and they failed to take into account their
fans of all ages and nationalities when deciding to abandon the values
of sportsmanship so unconditionally.
"People who had paid good
money to see a professional and exciting game of cricket on the famous
ground of Lord's had no idea that what they were watching was not a true
game, but one where parts of the play had been predetermined for cash."
Prosecutors
said Butt and Asif conspired with sports agent Mazhar Majeed to ensure
the delivery of three intentional no-balls — illegal or erroneous
deliveries by the bowling team that are roughly equivalent to a
pitcher's balk in baseball — during a match against England in August
2010.
Commentators at the time remarked with incredulity at the sloppiness of Asif and Amir's play.
"This
was cheating pure and simple," Metropolitan Police Detective Chief
Superintendent Matthew Horne said. "They let down everybody that bought
tickets."
The 27-year-old Butt, Asif and Amir have already
received lengthy suspensions from an International Cricket Council
anti-corruption tribunal in Doha for fixing parts of the test match.
Butt
was banned for 10 years, five of which are suspended, Amir was banned
for five years and Asif was given a seven-year ban, with two suspended.
Whereas
Cronje — who died in a plane crash in 2002 — received immunity from
criminal prosecution in exchange for his admission of fixing, the
Pakistan players still faced a court case.
The allegations
originally surfaced after Majeed was recorded by an undercover reporter
working for the now-defunct News of the World tabloid saying that the
three Pakistan players had accepted money to fix betting markets.
Majeed was secretly filmed accepting 150,000 pounds ($242,000) in cash from the journalist.
Butt
said he had ignored the requests from Majeed, his agent, and the
28-year-old Asif — who reached No. 2 in the ICC's test bowling rankings
the month before the Lord's test — said he had only bowled the no-ball
at precisely the time Majeed said it would be delivered because Butt had
told him to run faster moments before bowling.
Criminal
prosecution for sports corruption remains rare in Britain, with arguably
the most notable case being the imprisonment of soccer player Tony Kay
47 years ago.
The one-time England international was convicted of
conspiracy to defraud over allegations he bet on his Everton side to
lose a match. He served 10 weeks of a four-month sentence and never
again played professionally.
Pakistan captain Salim Malik and a
teammate became the first cricketers to be banned for match-fixing in
1999, with Cronje and former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin banned
the following year after Cronje admitted to forecasting results in
exchange for money from a London bookmaker.
The ICC created its
Anti-Corruption and Security Unit in response to the incidents.
Widespread corruption is widely held to have been stamped out, but
isolated cases still occur.
West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels was banned for two years in 2008 over allegations he passed on information to a bookmaker. AP
