Asif and Butt Found Guilty, Is It Kamran and Wahab Next?

Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt have been found guilty of receiving money for providing inside information and “conspiracy to cheat” in the spot fixing controversy. They will face criminal court hearing next and may even have to serve jail terms. The trio of Asif, Butt and Aamir have all been found guilty with Aamir being convicted earlier. This is a shameful incident for world cricket. Cricket has been claimed to be a gentleman’s game and such acts of cheating are not called. The ICC has also urged for strict action against all the offenders. Both Asif and Butt were found guilty by the Southwark Crown Court in London.

Guilty Trio: Aamir, Asif & Butt

Their treacherous acts came to limelight thanks largely to a fake sheikh. The name of this undercover agent was Mazher Mahmood who was doing a sting operation for the News of the World. In the sting video the sheikh meets with a bookie by the name of Mazhar Majeed and promises the former that he can provide him information about certain passages of play. He also reveals his association with Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir.

Soon after the tape was released PCB decided to drop the trio from their team and put on an investigation bench. The ICC on its behalf suspended Butt for 10 years, Asif for 7 years and Aamir for 5 years. But Asif and Butt termed this as an unfair trial and challenged their punishment. Thus they were up for fresh trial. On Tuesday they were found guilty after closely going through all the evidences.

Kamran Akmal & Wahab Riaz will face fresh probe

When the video footage was closely inspected during the court procedure as many as seven Pakistani players’ names came up. Barring the guilty trio there were names of Kamran Akmal, Umar Akmal, Imran Farhat and Wahab Riaz. According to the QC for the prosecution Aftab Jafferjee the role of Kamran Akmal and Wahab Riaz look to be suspicious in the spot-fixing scandal. Names of both these players were mentioned many times in the video. Mazher Majeed even mentions the name of Kamran Akmal amongst his fixing contacts.

Based on the evidences the Southwark Crown Court not only found the trio guilty but also instructed to set up a fresh anti-corruption probe against Kamran  Akmal and Wahab Riaz.