(REUTERS) – Prosecutors, bringing charges against three Pakistani cricketers and a sports agent accused of taking bribes, are seeking to obtain transcripts from an International Cricket Council tribunal, a court heard yesterday.
Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, pace bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, and sports agent Mazhar Majeed, from Croydon, England, were charged in February with conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is keen to look at documentation from the ICC hearing held in Doha earlier this year, where Butt, Asif and Amir were banned from the sport for a minimum of five years.
The trio were found guilty of bowling pre-arranged no-balls during a Test against England last year but are appealing their bans with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
None of the four accused was present at Southwark Crown Court yesterday for the case management hearing, where the defendants’ attendance was not compulsory.
A trial date has been fixed for October 4 but a High Court judge will hear legal argument about the case at the end of July.
Judge James Saunders said the trial should proceed without delay, adding: “This is a trial in which there is a good deal of public interest. It is in the public interest we get on with things and do not hang about.”