London, Sept. 4: The Pakistan high commissioner, Mr Wajed Shamsul Hasan, in an exclusive interview to this newspaper, admitted on Saturday afternoon that the Scotland Yard officers had seized a huge amount of cash from the hotel rooms of three cricketers — Test skipper Salman Butt and fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir.
He admitted that tainted cash linked to British businessman Mazhar Majeed, who was arrested by the Met Police in the spot-fixing scandal, was found from Butt’s custody.
“Cash was found on Salman Butt — more than £50,000 was found from him,” Mr Hasan told this newspaper.
He said that money is accounted for. “Some of it was from Mazhar Majeed and some of the money was received from various sponsors given to him by Majeed.”
“There is no doubt that he (Butt) had money. The rest of the players had very little amount of money, some £1,500. Their allowances come to about £12,000 for the series.”
Mr Hasan came up with a convoluted explanation of tainted cash from Majeed being found from Salman Butt. “For example, if Adidas gave me money to pay to you and I am also paid money by News of the World and when I am making a payment to you, instead of paying from Adidas money, I pay you from the News of the World money. That’s not my business. My business is to receive money for the work that I have rendered.”
“If that is tainted, that again is a question for the police to investigate as to how this money went to Mazhar Majeed, why it was given to him. Was it given it to him to entrap people? Is it a crime to entrap people?” he added.