Butt does not trust ICC Tribunal
After a decision by ICC, in which it rejected the reply submitted by the lawyers of Salman Butt, the confrontation between the suspended Test captain of Pakistan and the International Cricket Council has taken a new turn.
It has been reported that Salman has expressed his concerns over the attitude of ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, who had stated that he would be disappointed if Pakistani players would be proven innocent. The head of ICC code of conduct commission, who
is going to conduct a hearing over the spot-fixing allegations next month, has rejected the reply submitted by some of most experienced lawyers of Pakistan on behalf of the former captain.
Ironically, after the reply was turned down by the ICC panel, in which Butt had requested for the formation of an independent commission to hold the hearing of the case, the commission gave Salman only 24 hours to either submit a new reply despite knowing
that it was a public holiday both in Dubai and Pakistan.
According to sources, the reply submitted to the ICC panel; comprising of 36 pages, had termed the provisional suspension of the player as illegal. Moreover, Butt’s legal team had also pointed out the fact that despite the passage of three months period
to the imposed suspension; ICC couldn't come up with a decision, which was also a violation of its rules. However, instead of correcting itself and following the rules laid to address the matters, ICC went on displaying sheer biasness and rejected the reply
altogether.
The letter sent to the ICC by Butt’s legal team had also lamented the fact that ICC had dragged its feet on the case and had went on its toes to keep the suspended player from having a fair appeal hearing.
In order to support its case, the legal team in its letter had also quoted examples from past cases of match-fixing in which despite of imposition of heavy fines upon the players, they were now holding respectable position in the world cricket.
From Pakistan, the letter provided examples of Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed, both of which had been fined for similar allegations but now were respectively coaching team Pakistan and England.
Sharing his own remarks over the issue, Salman Butt stated that noted lawyers Aitzaz Ahsen and Yasin Patel were now working upon filing a new reply.
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