London, Nov 3 (IANS) Former Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt was Thursday jailed for 30 months for ‘orchestrating’ spot-fixing during the fourth Test between Pakistan and England at Lord’s in August last year.
Fast bowler Mohammad Asif was imprisioned for one year and young Mohammad Aamer for six months.
Cricket agent Mazhar Majeed was jailed for two years and eight months by the Southwark Crown Court here Thursday.
While handing down the sentences, Justice Jeremy Cooke said cricket matches would forever be tainted by the scandal.
”It’s not cricket’ was an adage. It is the insidious effect of your actions on professional cricket and the followers of it that make the offences so serious,’ the judge said.
‘The image and integrity of what was once a game but is now a business is damaged in the eyes of all, including the many youngsters who regarded you as heroes and would have given their eye, teeth to play at the levels and with the skills that you had,’ the judge said.
The judge said all the players would be released on licence half way through their sentences if they behaved.
Before pronouncing the sentences, Justice Cooke said to all three: ‘Your motive was greed, despite the legitimate rewards on offer in salaries and prize money…Offences so serious that only a sentence of improsonment will suffice.’
He sentenced Majeed for 32 months and then turned to Butt.
‘Clear to me that you were orchestrator of this activity,’ he told Butt.
The judge told Butt he will get a ‘harsher sentence’ than other players and that he holds him responsible for ‘corrupting’ Amir.
He also told Butt that he was involved in fixing before the Lord’s Test also but will only punish him for Lord’s Test.
The judge told 19-year-old Aamir that he respects the guilty plea of the youngster. ‘It took courage.’
The three players have all been ordered to pay compensation towards prosecution costs. Butt was ordered to pay pound 30,937, Amir pound 9,389, and Asif pound 8,120.
The spot-fixing came to light through a sting operation conducted by now-defunct News of the World. An undercover reporter of the NOTW paid Majeed pound 150,000 for details of the precise timing of three no-balls, bowled during the fourth Test between Pakistan and England Aug 26.
The sting operation was secretly filmed. Majeed – who represented Amir, Asif and Butt – was seen proposing to arrange for no-balls to be bowled at specific moments in the fourth Test between England and Pakistan at Lord’s in 2010.
Majeed was caught on tape bragging that he had several Pakistan players in his pocket.
After the spot-fixing allegations first surfaced, Butt, Amir and Asif were given lengthy bans by the sport’s governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC).
An ICC tribunal found them guilty of corruption. Butt received a 10-year ban (five suspended), Asif seven years (two suspended) and Amir five.
The case was pursued by London Metropolitan Police. The investigation was completed in 159 days and after 270 days the Crown court delivered the conviction of the players and the agent Tuesday.
