Pakistan high commissioner Wajed Shamsul Hasan, in an exclusive interview to this newspaper, admitted on Saturday afternoon that the Scotland Yard officers had seized a huge amount of cash from the hotel rooms of three cricketers.
He admitted that tainted cash linked to British businessman Mazhar Majeed, who was arrested by the Met Police in the spot-fixing scandal, was found from Butt’s custody.
“Cash was found on Salman Butt — more than £50,000 was found from him,” Mr Hasan told this newspaper. He said that money is accounted for. “Some of it was from Mazhar Majeed and some of the money was received from various sponsors given to him by Majeed.”
“There is no doubt that he (Butt) had money. The rest of the players had very little amount of money, some £1,500. Their allowances come to about £12,000 for the series.”
Mr Hasan came up with a convoluted explanation of tainted cash from Majeed being found from Salman Butt.
“For example, if Adidas gave me money to pay to you and I am also paid money by News of the World and when I am making a payment to you, instead of paying from Adidas money, I pay you from the News of the World money. That’s not my business. My business is to receive money for the work that I have rendered.”
“If that is tainted, that again is a question for the police to investigate as to how this money went to Mazhar Majeed, why it was given to him. Was it given it to him to entrap people? Is it a crime to entrap people?” he added.
The cricketers were grilled for so long on Friday by the Scotland Yard investigative team at the Kilburn police station in north London because of their lack of proficiency in English, Mr Hasan said.
“Salman Butt can speak a bit of English. He is the most articulate among the last few captains we have had. But as regards to two other players, they can hardly speak English, they can hardly understand it. They had to be provided interpreters yesterday,” he told this newspaper.
“Interpreters were used extensively for two of them, so that’s how the entire proceedings took the whole day,” Mr Hasan said.
He said he did not know what the three cricketers planned to do. He was not forthcoming whether they would stay in Britain till the end of the Metropolitan Police investigation or leave the country.
“At the end of the day, the police did not put any restraining order on them, did not detain them, did not put any charges against them, they were free to go and they are free to move about,” he said. “The police is not worried about the players.”
“They are free to do what they wish. Whatever I gathered when I talked to them on Thursday, they were very categorical that they would like to get the charges cleared against them. I am sure they will stay as long as they are needed,” Mr Hasan said.
The Pakistan high commissioner said that he had no apprehensions about the impartiality of the ICC, considering the current president of the cricket body is Sharad Pawar.
“I would expect the ICC to be impartial because Pakistan played a major role in the election of Mr Pawar as the ICC chairman,” he said, adding that “as such I have no apprehensions, unless otherwise proven.”
The action taken by the ICC against the three cricketers was shocking, he said. “Mr Pawar had categorically said that no action would be taken against the cricketers till proven guilty. It was shocking for me that a categorical statement by the ICC president was disregarded by one of his employees,” Mr Hasan said.
Explaining his insistence on labelling the spot-fixing scandal as a conspiracy against the Pakistan cricket team, Mr Hasan said: “When I said there was a conspiracy against Pakistan cricketers, the man in my mind was Mr Mazhar Majeed, who was shown on video with stacks of money.
“He was first arrested and then released by the Metropolitan police on match-fixing claims and then subsequently by the customs over money laundering charges. The money laundering charge is something that has an Indian connection also. Indian bookies are involved in it.
“I am sure that you know Indian bookies are big people, they have a lot of money at stake, so it makes a wider thing to happen and it gets complicated also. That’s how I see that there was a conspiracy,” he said.
Refuting ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat’s statement during a press conference at Lord’s on Friday afternoon that the Pakistan high commissioner had misunderstood him, Mr Wajed stuck to his stand that ICC did not inform him about the suspension of the three players.
“I can understand a little bit of English. I had five senior colleagues with me when Mr Lorgat visited me. The deputy attorney-general of Pakistan was with me. He is a qualified barrister, who has practised in Britain, the PCB chief (Ejaz Butt) was with me. They were also shocked by the announcement of suspension of the three players by the ICC on Thursday night.”
Mr Hasan said the ICC should have controlled the issue of betting on cricket. “Betting is legal in Britain, but is illegal in Pakistan and in India, the ICC should have acted in a manner to provide some foolproof mechanism to avert this sort of business. But they didn’t do it, so this is the failure of the ICC.”
The high commissioner said that he had intervened and stopped the Pakistan cricket team from returning home after the spot-fixing scandal broke last weekend.
“There was a lot of furore in Pakistan and a very wide demand that the team be recalled, and to serve the cause of cricket and to save the English and Wales Cricket Board, I intervened and stopped them from going back. About £10-12 million was involved in the series and this would have washed away the ECB, so I said no we should not withdraw the team and continue the games,” Mr Hasan said.