The ICC tribunal has announced a sanction of ten years' of ineligibility for Salman Butt (with five years of a suspended sentence); seven years for Mohammad Asif (with two years suspended) and five years' ineligibility for Mohammad Amir. The announcement on Saturday evening followed a day of deliberations in Doha between the three-man tribunal - comprising Michael Beloff QC, Sharad Rao and Justice Albie Sachs - and the players and their legal teams.
5.45pm A breakthrough at last. We've just been informed by the ICC that the tribunal will be making an announcement in 15 minutes.
3.00pm The wait goes on. Over five hours since the start of the hearing and no word still about what has been happening on the 12th floor of the Qatar Financial Centre, where the hearing is taking place.
That could indicate that any possible appeal from the players to have a verdict delayed more, in light of the CPS development yesterday, has equally possibly been rejected; and that deliberations are still ongoing about the verdict and, potentially, sanctions and their severity: as the players have the right to argue against heavy sanctions, so the ICC has the right to argue against lighter ones.
All of which means that the large media contingent, hanging around one floor below in the same building, has had very little to do but sit and speculate about what may, or may not, be happening upstairs: verdict adjourned, verdict today, no verdict at all, who knows? The BBC is here, Sky TV, the Daily Telegraph, Geo TV, news agency reporters and Al-Jazeera, which seems to have found enough staff not in Cairo currently, to send here.
Also here is the sports editor of the News of the World, the newspaper that broke the story after an undercover sting operation by its investigative reporter Mazher Mahmood. It is expected that they will make an official statement after the verdict has been made public.
At least three journalists have fallen asleep now in the room where the tribunal verdict is expected to be announced. That can only mean there is still no news from the 12th floor and you have to start wondering about what that means for what we should expect at the end of it.
It feels like an airport departure lounge with no expected time of departure.
Very little about the day so far, in conclusion, feels like what should be one of the most significant days in the history of the game. There was, in any case, a sense of deflation after the CPS announcement yesterday for that goes beyond just cricket and cricketers.
12.48pm As we wait for further developments, it is worth pondering over one issue that has dogged the spot-fixing scandal from the very start: how to proceed in a case where alleged breaches of a sporting code - the ICC's anti-corruption code in this case - may involve breaches of a country's law, in this case UK criminal law.
In the very early days of the case, when the three players were being interviewed by UK police and had been provisionally suspended by the ICC, the PCB expressed concern that, in effect, two separate investigations were being carried out against the players, by the ICC and UK police. Though the PCB pulled back support swiftly enough, the players have repeated those concerns subsequently.
Most recently Salman Butt asked the ICC to defer the January 6-11 hearing in Doha on precisely those grounds; Butt's legal representatives were aiming for a postponement of the hearings to a date after the UK's Crown Prosecution Service had dealt with the case. The request was rejected but the issue is something that has concerned at least one other lawyer involved in the case.
The CPS announcement yesterday, that the players will face charges in a UK court, has made the issue even more relevant now. There is precedent - as there always is - in a horse racing scandal in the UK early in the 2000s. In short, a race fixing scandal was treated only as a criminal matter and not by the relevant sporting body, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). The criminal case eventually collapsed four years later and the BHA's own disciplinary inquiries had stopped when the criminal case began and were unable to be resumed.
A subsequent report into the whole affair, by Dame Elizabeth Neville, gave a legal opinion on the sphere of governance of sporting bodies and when it overlaps with another sphere, of criminal jurisdiction. It's worth reading the report though the most significant recommendation or conclusion that the it arrives to is this:
"The Review Team considers that the BHA should investigate and prosecute alleged breaches of the Rules and Orders of Racing notwithstanding that this conduct may amount to a criminal offence, subject to the exceptions set out below. The only circumstances in which disciplinary matters which are under investigation by the BHA should be remitted to the police or the Gambling Commission for consideration for criminal investigation are:
where the disciplinary powers of the BHA are so inadequate in an individual case that the evidence necessary to prove the charge cannot be obtained or the penalty would be ineffective;
where the conduct disclosed to the BHA concerns substantial non-racing or non-betting matters of a serious nature;
where a disciplinary panel, appeal board or the Board of the BHA recommends such a step at the conclusion of disciplinary proceeding."
It is worth also looking at points 8.16 and 8.18 in the 'Analysis' section, the 'Legal Analysis' that follows and point 8.26 in the 'Conclusion.'
As must be obvious by now, there are no real updates coming out other than that the hearing continues, nearly three hours in. The feeling is that the longer it goes on, the less the chances that a deferment of verdict is likely.
10.40am Mohammad Amir's lawyer Shahid Karim has expressed his "surprise" at the CPS's decision to announce on Friday that they will pursue a criminal case against the three Pakistani players in the spot-fixing scandal.
In the first and so far only official reaction from any of the players to the CPS announcement, Karim spoke to Pakistan's Geo News this morning, before arriving for the hearing. "I will only say we are very surprised that one day before the tribunal was due to give its decision the CPS has done this," Karim said.
"It is very surprising and changes everything and complicates the situation. It is shocking. It changes our approach but I can't say more at the moment."
Amir also spoke briefly to the channel but understandably, given the situation, couldn't say much other than call on the nation's prayers for support.
Karim's acknowledgement that "their approach" has to change is possibly the only official indication that players may seek a deferment on the tribunal's verdict today. It is believed that, had the verdicts been guilty, Karim would've argued for lighter sanctions for Amir based on his age and past disciplinary record: allowances are made for both in the ICC's code of conduct.
In another update, Mohammad Asif actually arrived at the hearing without his lawyer Alexander Cameron but it is very likely he arrived before everyone and is inside already.
Source: www.cricinfo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment