Pakistan's Nasir Jamshed Pleads Guilty In Bribery Case

Former Pakistan opener Nasir Jamshed has finally pleaded guilty to bribery charges that were levied on him in December 2018 by British’s National Crime Agency (NCA). In January this year, the disgraced cricketer and two other – Yousef Anwar and Mohammed Ijaz – had pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to offer bribes to professional cricketers.

The trio was accused of offering bribes to cricketers to fix games during Pakistan Super League. Anwar and Ijaz are also accused of conspiring to bribe players taking part in the Bangladesh Premier League in late 2016. The trio was arrested after an inquiry after being accused of spot-fixing by the National Crime Agency.

“Three men have been charged with bribery offences as part of an NCA investigation into cricket match spot-fixing in tournaments organised by national cricket boards from Pakistan and Bangladesh,” the British agency had said last year.

Jamshed slapped withe heaviest punishment:

Earlier, Nasir Jamshed was slapped with a ten-year ban by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Prior to that, he had served a year-long ban separately after an anti-corruption tribunal found him guilty of non-cooperation in the 2017 PSL spot-fixing case. Later, the PCB charged him with seven violations of their anti-corruption code because he was, according to the board, the “linchpin” connecting several corruption cases.

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According to PCB, Nasir Jamshed was the key figure in the fixing scandal. He was the sixth Pakistan player to be punished in the wake of the PSL spot-fixing case in 2017. The left-handed batsman was slapped with the heaviest punishment. The other players were Sharjeel Khan, Khalid Latif, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Irfan and Shahzaib Hasan.

In the latest development, the AFP has reported that the prosecutor at the hearing said a policeman had gone undercover, pretending to be a member of a betting syndicate. He discovered an attempted fix in the Bangladesh Premier League in 2016 and a fix in PSL 2017. Jamshed is said to have been a target of bribery during the tournament in Bangladesh and later decided to indulge in the wrongdoings.

He further attempted to sway other players to spot fix in a PSL game between Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi in Dubai on February 9. Jamshed represented Pakistan between 2008 and 2015 but could never settle down in the playing eleven. Overall, he scored close to 2,000 runs in 2 Tests, 48 ODIs and 18 T20Is.

February 9 2020 has been set as the date for the sentencing of the trio.