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Richard Sydenham at Southwark Crown Court
October 18, 2011
Azhar Majeed, the brother and business partner of tainted agent Mazhar, was also accused of fixing matches by the prosecution in the alleged spot-fixing trial on Tuesday.
Mazhar was secretly recorded by an undercover journalist working for the now defunct News of the World and the evidence collected from that sting operation brought about this trial, which has reached its tenth day on Tuesday. All along, the trial has been about Mazhar Majeed, the defendants Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif, and bowler Mohammad Amir, who delivered two of the three alleged pre-determined no-balls in question. But after lunch as, Aftab Jafferjee QC for the prosecution grilled Butt on various points in the trial, he referred to Azhar Majeed.
The jury has already learned that Azhar Majeed is the older brother and business partner of Mazhar but his name has surfaced sparingly so far. One instance when it was referred to more though was during the written statement of the Pakistan team security manager Major Khwaja Najam Javed.
Major Najam said he asked Azhar Majeed to leave the room of then Pakistan Test debutant Wahab Riaz at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington during The Oval Test match last August, as players were told that they should meet their agents only in the hotel lobby, not in their rooms. Najam said Butt and Kamran Akmal were also present in the room as they sat chatting until after midnight.
When prosecutor Jafferjee quizzed Butt on this, he said: "I also suggest that Azhar Majeed was up to match-fixing. We saw a text with pretty graphic language of what the two brothers would like to get out of cricket," Jafferjee added.
He was referring to the recovered text message that Azhar Majeed sent his brother, which was read to the jury in the first week during the prosecution's opening address. It said: "OK, let's squeeze every last f****** drop out of cricket."
The exchange between Butt and Jafferjee came up in what was a fraught afternoon for the former opening batsman, in having to answer several awkward questions relating to his accounting and finances, his relationship with Mazhar Majeed and the allegations already heard in court on spot-fixing.
The case continues.
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