London, Sept. 4: Officials at the Metropolitan police station in Kilburn, north London, questioned Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir about their phone and text message records, bank accounts and money trail from British businessman Mazhar Majeed, British newspapers reported.

The trio’s lawyer, Ms Elizabeth Robertson, who had accompanied the players during their questioning by the Met police, said they were released after interrogation.

“We would request all media, in their reporting of these investigations, to respect the players’ right to a fair and proper hearing,” she said, denying that the players had been arrested by the police. Amir, according to The Telegraph, was asked about a message he allegedly sent to Majeed last Friday, saying: “Shall I do it or not?” Salman Butt was reportedly questioned about £50,000 cash recovered by the police. The focus of the investigating team is now on recovering £150,000 paid to Majeed by News of the World.

The Times also revealed on Saturday that bundles of cash had been discovered in the hotel rooms of four players, the trio and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal, during raids by the police after the Lord’s Test. The three cricketers refused to speak to the media about their questioning by the Met police. “The PCB, together with the three players, will continue to co-operate fully with the Metropolitan police and the ICC investigations, and look forward to a timely and satisfactory outcome.

They will not be making any further comment at this time and we ask that you respect their wishes in that regard,” Robertson, a lawyer specialising in fraud and business crime and regulation, said.

Pakistan high commissioner Wajed Shamsul Hasan, who described ICC decision to suspend the three Pakistani players as “self-serving, malafide and intriguingly sinister,” issued a strong criticism of the ICC again on Friday night. “After the shocking, arbitrary and high-handed suspension of the three Pakistani cricketers through the ICC’s uncalled for action, nothing is coming to me as a surprise. Rather, my apprehensions that there is a rat in the whole affair are being strengthened,” he said.

“It is emerging as a fishy situation where pieces have now started falling in place to convince me that there is more than meet the eyes,” Hasan said.

The high commissioner, who issued the statement after the questioning of the three cricketers was over, said: “I would rather add that ICC’s hasty decision was aimed at covering up its own acts of omission and commission. Its notice to the players appears to have been aimed at influencing the legal process and to prejudice the ongoing police investigation. In contrast, Pakistan side has fully cooperated with the police in their inquiry and this cooperation would continue.”

Hasan objected to co-operation between the ICC and Scotland Yard, especially in context of sharing of evidence between the two sides.

“The public declaration by ICC officials that there is a co-operation between ICC and the police under some protocol signed after the incident is strange. It is also strange that as per the ICC official’s account, the police had shared evidence with ICC while ICC conducted its own investigations.

This, in our view, constitutes a breach of trust and the PCB being an aggrieved party would be justified to consider the sharing of information between the ICC and the police as prejudicial to the interests of the Pakistani players,” he said.