Cricinfo







Pakistan probe team flying to Australia

AFP
5 January 1999



KARACHI, Jan 5 (AFP) - A three-member Pakistan judicial commission team was flying to Australia late Tuesday to cross examine Australian cricket stars Mark Waugh and Shane Warne on bribery allegations, legal officials said.

The commission wants to re-examine Waugh and take testimony from Warne following the pair's admission last month they took money from an Indian bookmaker for supplying match information in Sri Lanka in 1994.

The team comprises Pakistan Cricket Board legal adviser Ali Sibtain Fazli, his assisstant Ali Sajjad and Registrar of the Lahore High Court Abdus Salam Khawar.

They are being joined by a lawyer representing Pakistan player Salim Malik.

Waugh, Warne and another Australian player, Tim May, alleged Malik offered them bribes to play poorly during the 1994 tour of Pakistan.

Malik was absolved of all the charges by an independent one-man inquiry in Pakistan in 1995.

Waugh testified before the commission in October this year during his team's tour to Pakistan and repeated his accusations against Malik.

The judicial body is expected to return home on January 11.

Warne and Waugh were fined for taking money from the Indian bookmaker for information on the pitch and weather four years ago. But the Australian Cricket Board hushed the matter up until last month, when an Australian newspaper revealed the cover-up.

``This is our chance to find some more truth after Waugh and Warne made those revelations and we have given Salim Malik another chance to cross question his accusers,'' Fazli told AFP.

Former Australian Cricket Board chairman Alan Crompton will also make a statement to the team at its sitting in Melbourne on Friday, they said.

Malik's lawyer Azmat Saeed will cross question the Australians after Malik refused to go to Australia personally, terming the trip ``useless.''

ACB Chairman Dennis Rogers on Monday said the Australian players were happy to testify in public.

The commission, headed by Lahore High Court Judge Malik Mohammad Qayyum, is expected to give its report before January 31.



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