Pakistan inquiry to deliver report next week
Posted: Monday December 07, 1998 02:09 PM
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Pakistan players await the decision of the judge on tampering charges AP |
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) -- The judge investigating charges of corruption in Pakistan cricket said Monday he would submit his report next week, adding "the allegations leveled in the past are not baseless."
"I will require a week from Tuesday to complete my investigations and submit a detailed report to [the country's] President Mohammad Rafiq Tarar," Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum told Reuters from Lahore.
"I wouldn't commit on who are the players...but I admit that something is wrong somewhere and the allegations leveled in the past are not baseless," said Qayyum, a Lahore High Court judge asked by the government to hold hearings into the charges.
He said the hearings would end Tuesday, but that he would not release the report to the media when he submits it to the president.
"It will be entirely up to the president what action he takes. My assignment is to carry out the investigation and submit the report. But I believe action will be taken."
Under the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) constitution, the president of the country is the patron-in-chief of the board.
The submission of the report will come when Pakistan cricket is also under pressure on the playing ground, having lost a recent home series to Australia and now trailing 1-0 in a series against Zimbabwe.
Pakistan is also scheduled to go to India next month for its first test tour there in 13 years.
More than 40 witnesses have given evidence since the hearings began in September, including the Australian duo of Mark Taylor and Mark Waugh, who testified in October that former national team captain Salim Malik offered them a bribe when they toured Pakistan in 1994-95.
Malik has denied the charges. Three-and-a-half years ago he was suspended for seven months while a retired judge looked at the same accusations in an internal investigation for the board.
He was cleared of all charges but was stripped of his captaincy when he was included in the team that toured Australia the next season.
The case was reopened this year because of media pressure, and four months ago a cricket board interim report recommended that Malik along with Wasim Akram and Ijaz Ahmad should not be selected until a government-ordered investigation was finished.
But that recommendation was overruled by the board's executive council and all three played against Australia, which won the three-test series 1-0 - its first success in Pakistan in 39 years.
All three have denied any misconduct.
Malik has played in 99 matches in more than 15 years of international cricket, and is the second highest scorer for Pakistan after Javed Miandad.
No matter what action the government takes, cricket board chief executive Majid Khan said Pakistan would not be banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) if corruption charges were proved.
"The ICC will support us. I don't think we would be put into isolation because two or three players are found guilty of bringing the sport into disrepute," Khan said from Lahore.
"The objective of the investigation was to restore the pride and glamour of the sport. We will welcome whatever the judge's findings are irrespective of the fact if the players are found guilty or not," said Khan, a former Pakistan captain.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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