Verdict exposes ACSU flaws
A day after the Bangladesh Cricket Board's (BCB's) anti-corruption tribunal sent the long verdict on match-fixing in the BPL to all the parties involved, lawyers of the acquitted individuals yesterday said that the verdict exposes the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit's (ACSU's) investigation as 'flawed.'
Explaining one such flaw which the tribunal pointed out through their judgement Nawroz M R Chowdhury, who represents the Dhaka Gladiators, said: “The ACSU knew from beforehand that some of the matches were going to be fixed and yet did not try to stop it. When their representative was asked why, he said that they wanted to catch the culprits. But when the tribunal asked them if they had informed BCB regarding the issue, they said no.
“According to the contract signed between ACSU and the BCB the ACSU is entitled to regularly inform the BCB regarding their findings. There should have been weekly reports. However, nothing like that happened. We personally feel the BCB should sue ACSU and get back the Tk 1.7 crores that they paid them for the investigation,” said Nawroz.
He further stated that the judgment described a key foreign member of the Gladiators as a 'co-conspirator' in the fixing conspiracy. During the investigation however, ACSU reportedly worked hard to prove the individual's innocence.
“For a moment it seemed as though ACSU's lawyers were on the defence and not us. They started bringing in witnesses to prove his innocence. They wanted to prove that he was an undercover agent working for them, but they obviously could not satisfy the tribunal,” said Nurus Sadique, the lawyer of acquitted Gladiators player Mosharraf Hossain.
Nawroz's client and Gladiators owner Shihab Chowdhury was found guilty by the Tribunal. Nawroz said that the franchise might think of appealing against the decision once the sanctions are imposed on the individuals declared guilty on May 18.
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