Three-man tribunal to examine fixing charges

The ICC has set up a three-man tribunal to look into the spot-fixing allegations against three Pakistani players. The hearing will be held between January 6 and 11 in Doha, Qatar.

The panel that will look into charges against Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir is made up of Michael Beloff QC, Justice Albie Sachs of South Africa and Sharad Rao of Kenya.

The three players were provisionally suspended by the ICC in September for their alleged involvement in the spot-fixing controversy during the Lord's Test. In a News of the World sting, Mazhar Majeed, a player agent, claimed to have paid Amir and Asif to bowl no-balls to order with the collaboration of Butt. The players lodged appeals against their suspensions, though Asif eventually withdrew his, and they were heard in Dubai in October. Michael Beloff, the ICC code of conduct commissioner who chaired the hearing, rejected their appeals, following which the PCB proceeded to revoke their central contracts.

The hearing of the appeals was only meant to establish whether or not the ICC followed the correct procedures in provisionally suspending the players, and not their innocence or guilt. The trio face the possibility of criminal charges in the UK, and evidence gathered by Scotland Yard has been passed on to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Apart from Beloff, the two other members of the tribunal have shared a long association with the ICC. Sachs, who was a senior judge on the constitutional court of South Africa, is Cricket South Africa's representative on the ICC's Code of Conduct Commission. Rao is Kenya's representative on the same commission with wide experience in international legal and sports panels, including the Commonwealth Games Federation. He has also served as a panelist on the Court of Arbitration for Sport at the Olympics.