Pak defends tainted trio, hints at Indian hand in fixing saga

London, Sep 3 (PTI) Pakistan High Commissioner to Britain
Wajid S Hassan Friday gave a new twist to the spot-fixing
scandal involving the Pakistan cricket team, saying the three
accused players were "innocent" and Indian bookmakers were
involved in the whole murky episode.
"I found that all these three players were absolutely
innocent. They were not involved, they have been taken for a
ride and the agent (Mazhar Majeed) was the culprit, in the
sense that he was responsible for defrauding some Asian
bookies," Hassan said.
"The British press says Asian but if they were from
Pakistan they (British media) would have called Pakistanis,
which means some Indian bookies were involved in it. This
Majeed allegedly defrauded these Indian bookies and so the
newspaper investigated this sort of sting operation through
their sources here," he told NDTV.
Hassan's statement came even as the International Cricket
Council had charged the three players -- Test captain Salman
Butt and pacers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer -- with
corruption offences and provisionally suspended them from all
forms of the game pending a decision on the charges.
Succumbing to all round pressure, Pakistan had Thursday
dropped the tainted trio from the ODI series against England
scandal but strongly defended them and vowed full support.
Refusing to accept that the three players were dropped in
the wake of the spot-fixing scandal, the Pakistan High
Commissioner had said the trio had opted out.
"They are extremely disturbed with what has happened in
the past one week. They have maintained that they are innocent
and on account of the mental torture that has hugely affected
them, they are not in the right frame of mind to play any
further," Hassan had said.
"Therefore, they have requested the Pakistan Cricket
Board not to consider them for the rest of the matches until
their names are cleared," he added.
Hassan had also raised serious doubts on the
authenticity of the News of the World's expose, saying, "What
is the reputation of those people who have brought us this
story?"
In an interview on BBC television, Hassan had said, "We
are not seeing on the video what the date is or what the time
is."
"Do you have answers to these questions? The video wasn't
timed or dated. It could have been filmed before or after the
match, or at a different time." PTI SSC