LONDON: Convicted Pakistani fast bowler Muhammad Asif has, through his lawyers, lodged a formal appeal against his International Cricket Council (ICC) ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Savita Sukul, the Principal of SJS Solicitors, confirmed to The News that her firm has submitted the formal appeal against the ICC seven-year ban. A spokesperson told this scribe: “The appeal has been filed”.
After his imprisonment, following the spot-fixing trial at the Southwark Crown Court in November last year, Asif instructed a new team of UK defence lawyers to represent him at the local and international legal forums in his quest to disprove the spot-fixing allegation. Muhammad Asif is currently spending time at Her Majesty’s Canterbury prison, a category C prison which specialises in housing foreign criminals convicted in Britain. The International Cricket Council (ICC) instituted disciplinary proceedings against Muhammad Asif following an allegation of being involved in a spot-fixing arrangement related to the fourth Test Match between Pakistan and England played at Lordís Cricket Ground in August 2010.
Upon the conclusion of those proceedings in February 2011, the ICC imposed a seven-year ban upon Asif from participating in all forms of the game.
“The appeal filed in the CAS against the ICC ban is founded upon multiple grounds that include the argument that the ICC Disciplinary Tribunal breached its own procedures, and in other ways infringed fundamental human rights to which Muhammad Asif is entitled. In such a situation the ICC ban is not only flawed, it could also be unlawful,” said an SJS Solicitors spokesperson. The CAS will set the date for the appeal hearing in Switzerland.