Jury sees no-ball footage and phone records
 |
| The court has heard details of conversations between Salman Butt (pictured) and Mazhar Majeed |
Aftab Jafferjee QC for the prosecution resumed his opening address from the previous evening and went on to detail an alleged corrupt relationship between then Test captain Butt and his agent Mazhar Majeed. He finished off detail of meetings, phone conversations and text messages surrounding The Oval Test against England last year, before moving on to details of the Lord's Test.
The jury was shown Mohammad Amir's no-ball from the first delivery of the third over before the proceedings were interrupted for lunch. Both sets of legal representatives had agreed previously that sound and commentary would not be played, presumably so not to influence the jury's conclusion of the footage.
Butt and Asif are facing charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, following that Lord's Test in August last year when they allegedly conspired with Majeed, teenage fast bowler Amir and other people unknown to bowl pre-determined no-balls. Butt and Asif deny the charges.
They were exposed by the now defunct British tabloid the News of the World in an undercover sting operation. Majeed was filmed revealing when no-balls would be delivered by the bowlers. That footage was also played to the jury on Thursday morning.
After lunch the undercover News of the World journalist Mazhar Mahmood, otherwise known as 'the fake Sheikh' from the time he snared former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, will give his evidence and so too will Ravi Sawani, the ICC's chief investigator.
Butt and Asif again sat through the proceedings in the dock, with Asif accompanied by Mr Khan from the national database of interpreters, while Butt sat two seats down from his former team-mate, wearing a jacket, jeans and Adidas trainers.
An interesting aspect of the morning's account centred around conversations between Mahmood, referred to in court as 'the journalist' to avoid confusion with Majeed, and Majeed himself. Jafferjee told how Mahmood was expecting no-balls to be delivered that had been promised him as proof that would appease his fictitious backers in the Far East.
But Majeed said they could not be delivered on the third day as coach Waqar Younis had held a team meeting and ordered his bowlers to cut down on the extras after 32 had been allowed on the second day - six wides and five no-balls. Instead, the prosecution went on to explain, an alternative plan was hatched whereby Butt would bat out a maiden. That did not happen in the event.
Of further interest was the heavy phone and text traffic between Butt, Majeed and Amir leading up to the Lord's Test - Asif less so. In fact, Majeed called Amir at 1.27am at his hotel while he was sleeping, the morning before the match was due to begin, after having collected £140,000 from Mahmood for the promise of three pre-determined no-balls, the jury heard.
All stories of phone and text traffic were substantiated with official records from phone companies that proved the dialogue between the various parties. Jafferjee then told how Amir messaged Majeed at 06.24am on the morning of the Lord's Test and said 'this is my friend's number in Pakistan, when you're done send them a message'. Amir then made repeated calls to a number in Pakistan. Majeed later that morning made a call to a regular Indian number he had often phoned. The prosecution had already told of how Majeed boasted his betting contacts were in India.
The case continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment