ICC bans Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif & Mohammad Amir

last updated at 15:12 GMT, Saturday, 5 February 2011

Butt, Asif and Amir can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas)

An International Cricket Council tribunal has found Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir guilty of corruption.

Former captain Butt has received a 10-year ban, five suspended, Asif seven years - two suspended - and Amir five.

The players were accused of spot-fixing in the fourth Test between Pakistan and England at Lord's last August, but have always denied any wrongdoing.

All three can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

"I am very disappointed but we are hopeful we can appeal in 20 days' time," Amir's lawyer Shahid Karim told Reuters.

The trio were provisionally suspended in September after the News of the World newspaper reported the deliveries were bowled at specific points in England's innings after a payment was made to businessman Mazhar Majeed.

Information on when no balls would occur in an innings could be exploited by gamblers betting on specialist markets offered by some bookmakers.

The ICC released a statement from Michael Beloff QC, chairman of the independent tribunal which heard the case for six days in the Qatari city of Doha in January, detailing the punishments.

The charge that Mr Butt failed to disclose to the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit the approach by Mr Majeed that Mr Butt should bat a maiden over in the Oval Test was proved Michael Beloff QC

Beloff's statement read: "The Tribunal found that the charges that [respectively] Mr Asif agreed to bowl and did bowl a deliberate no ball in the Lord's Test, Mr Amir agreed to bowl and did bowl two deliberate no balls in the same Test, and Mr Butt was party to the bowling of those deliberate no balls, were proved.

"We impose the following sanctions: On Mr Butt a sanction of 10 years ineligibility, five years of which are suspended on condition that he commits no further breach of the code and that he participates under the auspices of the Pakistan Cricket Board in a programme of anti-corruption education.

"On Mr Asif a sanction of seven years ineligibility, two years of which are suspended on condition that he commits no further breach of the code and that he participates under the auspices of the Pakistan Cricket Board in a programme of anti-corruption education.

"On Mr Amir sanction of five years of ineligibility. No further sanctions are imposed on any player and no orders are made as to costs."

During the hearing, fast bowlers Amir and Asif gave differing explanations for Majeed's accuracy in predicting when they would overstep.

Eighteen-year-old Amir, who finished with figures of 6-84 and the man of the match award in England's innings victory, said he did not know why he had cleared the popping crease with his front foot.

Asif, 28, told the panel that he had made a mistake after being instructed by Butt, 26, to bowl a faster delivery.

The ICC also looked into the possibility of wrongdoing in the third Test after Majeed allegedly told the News of the World that he could affect events on the field at The Oval.

Majeed's predictions for that match - unlike at Lord's - failed to materialise and all charges relating to that Test, except one relating to Butt, were withdrawn.

"The tribunal found that the charge that Mr Butt agreed to bat out a maiden over in the Oval Test match was dismissed," added Beloff.

"The charge that Mr Butt failed to disclose to the ICC's ACSU [Anti-Corruption and Security Unit] the approach by Mr Majeed that Mr Butt should bat a maiden over in the Oval Test was proved."

Butt's legal counsel, Yasin Patel, said his client maintained his innocence and disagreed with the verdict imposed on him.

He added: "Mr Butt would like to express his heartfelt thanks and gratitude to all his family, friends, supporters and the cricketing fraternity who have stood by him through all of this."

In a separate development, the Crown Prosecution Service announced on Friday the trio and Majeed would face criminal charges.

The players have been charged with conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments and also conspiracy to cheat but have strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Source: BBC News

Egypt's Brotherhood to hold talks with government

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Maggie Michael And Salah Nasrawi, Associated Press – 15 mins ago

CAIRO – Egypt's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said it would begin talks Sunday with the government to try to end the country's political crisis but made clear it would insist on the immediate ouster of longtime authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak.

The decision by the fundamentalist Brotherhood, which has been outlawed since 1954, comes as Egypt's leadership seeks to defuse mass demonstrations — now in their 13th day — by proposing reforms but stopping short of the protesters' key demand that Mubarak step down.

The talks would be the first known discussions between the government and the Brotherhood in years, suggesting the group could gain an open political role in the post-Mubarak era along with other opposition political parties.

The Brotherhood said in a statement that its representatives would meet with Vice President Omar Suleiman to press its "legitimate and just demands." Suleiman has accused the Brotherhood, businessmen and foreigners he did not identify as being behind a wave of looting and arson that swept much of the country last weekend after security forces inexplicably pulled out from the streets.

The government, meanwhile, tried to restore a sense of normalcy in the besieged capital of some 18 million people, opening a limited number of banks for the first time in a week, although just for three hours. Traffic also was back to regular levels — signals many hoped would ease economic losses suffered during the crisis.

Negotiations with the opposition reflect the regime's apparent determination to end the crisis by placating protesters with reforms but keeping Mubarak in office until elections can be held as scheduled in September. The United States shifted signals and gave key backing to the regime's gradual changes on Saturday, warning of the dangers if Mubarak goes too quickly.

Mubarak has promised not to run again but has insisted he will serve out the remainder of his current term to supervise a peaceful transfer of power. He also vowed to introduce far reaching political reform and to fight corruption. Leaders of Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party, including his son Gamal and longtime aides, resigned on Saturday.

Suleiman, a former chief of intelligence and army general, said Gamal, a 46-year-old banker-turned-politician, would not run for president, addressing longtime fears that he was being groomed for the post.

But the concessions so far have failed to satisfy the protesters. About 2,000 protesters remained camped out at the central Tahrir Square early Sunday. The number usually swells to tens of thousands by early afternoon.

Mubarak, Egypt's iron-fisted ruler of nearly 30 years, is known to have little or no tolerance for Islamist groups and the decision to open talks with the Brotherhood is a tacit recognition by his regime of their key role in the ongoing protests as well as their wide popular base.

Suleiman and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq have rejected calls for Mubarak's immediate ouster, arguing that demanding his departure was a betrayal of the services he offered the country both as a career air force officer and president.

But senior Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mursi told The Associated Press the group was sticking to the protesters' main condition that Mubarak step down. He also rejected proposals that Suleiman take over from Mubarak on an interim basis to oversee reforms.

The Brotherhood aims to create an Islamic state in Egypt, but insists that it would not force women to cover up in public in line with Islam's teachings and would not rescind Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel. During the recent crisis, the group also has called for "a democratic and civic state."

The group, which fields candidates as independents, made a surprisingly strong showing in elections in 2005, winning 20 percent of parliament's seats. However, thousands of its members were arrested in crackdowns over the past decade and it failed to win a single seat in elections held late last year. The vote was heavily marred by fraud that allowed the National Democratic Party to win all but a small number of the chamber's 518 seats.

Some opposition leaders met with Suleiman on Saturday but said there was no breakthrough.

At the focal point of the protests, Tahrir Square in central Cairo, some protesters said they had slept under army tanks ringing the plaza because of fears they would be pulled out overnight as part of a plan to evict them.

Egypt PM apologises for violence

The BBC's Jon Leyne: "The army is now willing to support the anti-Mubarak protesters"

Egypt's prime minister has apologised for the fighting between pro- and anti-government demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square, which killed five people and wounded several hundred.

Ahmed Shafiq pledged to investigate the violence, calling it a "fatal error".

Pre-dawn gunfire lasted for two hours as anti-government demonstrators tried to stay in control of the square.

The protesters are demanding that President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled for 30 years, step down immediately.

Egypt's Health Minister Ahmed Samih Farid said earlier that five people had died in the fighting, which began on Wednesday, and 836 were injured - mostly as the result of stone throwing and attacks with metal rods and sticks.

"This is a fatal error," Mr Shafiq told the privately-owned al-Hayat television. "When investigations reveal who is behind this crime and who allowed it to happen, I promise they will be held accountable and will be punished for what they did."

"There is no excuse whatsoever to attack peaceful protesters, and that is why I am apologising," he said, urging the protesters "to go home to help end this crisis".

Mr Mubarak has said that he will serve out his current presidential term, which ends in September, but will not run for re-election.

Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood have rejected government calls for negotiations, saying Mr Mubarak must leave office first.

Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain issued a joint statement condemning the violence and calling for a political transition that "must start now".

Tahrir Square focus

On Wednesday, groups fought pitched battles in Cairo, in the worst violence in 10 days of protests.

The unrest has left about 300 people dead across the country, according to UN estimates.

Cairo's Tahrir Square has been the main focus of the protests, and a group of anti-Mubarak protesters remains hemmed in there by barricades.

They said they had detained 120 people with ID cards linking them with police or the ruling party, most of whom had been caught attacking demonstrators on Tahrir Square.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo cites a retired general who has been speaking to tank crews on the square as saying the army was losing patience, and if firing continued from pro-government supporters, it was willing to fire on them.

Those attacking them appear to be either police who have taken off their uniforms or plain-clothes "thugs", our correspondent says.

There were petrol bombs being lobbed during the night and now this morning there's been gunfire.

The military leadership seems deeply uncomfortable with what is happening, adds our correspondent; they do not want to turn on protesters but they are not willing to defy the president either.

The US has urged all Americans in Egypt to leave "immediately".

'Very tense'

On Thursday, the army used its vehicles to separate the feuding factions.

One tank turned its turret towards pro-Mubarak demonstrators who were throwing rocks at protesters from a road above Tahrir Square, before advancing towards them with footsoldiers to help clear the overpass.

Earlier, Mona Seif, an anti-government protester in Tahrir Square, described the atmosphere as "very tense".

Actor Khalid Abdalla: "The fight for noble ideals will continue"

"Every couple of minutes we hear a sequence of gunshots, and it's only on one side of the square, which is the one close to Cairo Museum," she told the BBC.

Wednesday's violence began when thousands of supporters of President Mubarak surged into the square.

Continue reading the main story

• Pro-Mubarak camp 'well-organised'
• US 'concerned' at violence
• Square's place in history
• 'We are falling one-by-one'

"They started throwing stones at us," said an anti-government protester named as Zaccaria. "Then some of us started throwing stones at them and then we chased them out of the square. They returned once again with the horses and the whips and the thugs."

Opposition supporters say many in the pro-government camp were paid by the authorities to demonstrate, and allowed into the square by the troops surrounding it.

The two sides pelted each other with stones in running battles lasting for hours.

Egyptian troops refused to intervene, but fired into the air to try to disperse people. On Wednesday, they called for demonstrators to return to their homes, a call which was reiterated by Vice-President Omar Suleiman.

Clashes were also reported in Egypt's second city, Alexandria.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Egyptian Vice-President Omar Suleiman in a phone call on Wednesday that the clashes were a "shocking development" after days of peaceful protests.

She also "underscored the important role that the Egyptian armed forces have played in exercising restraint in the face of peaceful demonstrations", the state department said in a statement.

'Attitudes hardening'

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says he was handcuffed, blindfolded and interrogated by Egyptian secret police, before being released after three hours.

He says that the authorities' attitude appears to be hardening and the ruling elite are fighting back.

The violence drew condemnation from British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"If it turns out that the regime in any way has sponsored or tolerated this violence, that is completely unacceptable," he said after meeting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in London.

Mr Ban said: "Any attack against the peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable and I strongly condemn it."

If Mr Mubarak does not step down, demonstrators have planned to march on the presidential palace on Friday.

Meanwhile, internet services were returning to the country, having been cut off for days by the government.

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Source: BBC News

Egypt army moves to stop assault on protesters

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Maggie Michael, Associated Press – 10 mins ago

CAIRO – Egyptian army tanks and soldiers cleared away pro-government rioters and deployed between them and protesters seeking the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, as the prime minister made an unprecedented apology Thursday for the assault by regime backers that turned central Cairo into a battle zone.

Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq told state TV that the attack Wednesday on the anti-government protesters was a "blatant mistake" and promised to investigate who was behind it.

The protesters accuse the regime of organizing the assault, using paid thugs and policemen in civilian clothes, in an attempt to crush their movement. Government supporters charged central Tahrir Square Wednesday afternoon, sparking 15 hours of uncontrolled chaos, with the two sides battled with rocks, sticks, bottles and firebombs as soliders largely stood by without intervening.

The military began to move with muscle for the first time to stop the fighting early Thursday after a barrage of automatic gunfire hit the anti-government camp before dawn, killing at least three protesters in a serious escalation.

Four tanks cleared a highway overpass from which Mubarak supporters had hurled rocks and firebombs onto the protesters. Soldiers on the streets carrying rifles lined up between the two sides around 11 a.m. Several hundred other soldiers were moving toward the front line.

Thursday morning, more protesters streamed into the square, joining the thousands of defenders who spent the chilly night there, hunkered down against the thousands of government supporters in the surrounding streets.

A sense of victory ran through the protesters, even as they organized their ranks in the streets in case of a new assault. "Thank God, we managed to protect the whole area," said Abdul-Rahman, a taxi driver who spent the night in the square. "We prevented the pro-Mubarak people from storming the streets leading to the square." He refused to give his full name.

The apology by Shafiq, who was appointed by Mubarak over the weekend, was highly unusual from a leadership that rarely makes public admissions of a mistake. His promise to investigate who organized the attack came only hours after the Interior Ministry issued a denial that any of its police were involved.

"I offer my apology for everything that happened yesterday because it's neither logical nor rational," Shafiq said. "What happened was wrong, a million percent wrong, whether it was deliberate or not deliberate ... Everything that happened yesterday will be investigated so everyone knows who was behind it."

The anti-Mubarak movement, which has carried out an unprecedented 10 days of protests bringing as many as quarter-million people into Tahrir, has vowed to intensify protests to force him out by Friday. In a speech Tuesday night, Mubarak refused to step down immediately, saying he would serve out the remaining seven months of his term — a halfway concession rejected by the protesters.

The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against protesters, whose vigil in Tahrir Square had been peaceful for days, prompted a sharp rebuke from Washington, which has considered Egypt its most important Arab ally for decades, and sends it $1.5 billion a year in aid.

"If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.