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Or is it that they just dont want to talk to the police. Im really
confused about this one. Surely players cant just simply refuse to tour.

The usual story: The police "would like a word" but won't say more than
that. I'm not sure I'd go to some other country if I knew the cops
wanted to chat to me and they refused to say whether or not charges
could arise.

There should be a way for the investigating officers to come to SA,
take a statement under oath and then go back to India and say whether
or not charges will be preferred if either of the gentlemen concerned
arrives in India.

the keyboard and brought forth:

If the police are serious about this, then perhaps they'll find a way
of doing that once the tour of India is over. It's blindingly obvious
that the police are shilly-shallying around at Dalmiya's request so
that India won't have to face the terrifying spin of Nicky Boje.

Cheers,

Mike

One of the few contemporary spinners who has the skill and the nerve to
 bowl 6 arm balls in an over. SA are clearly keeping him under wraps at
the moment by using him as a batting super sub. This fits in with the
rumours that I hear of him having a new trick ball that (to the RHB)
pitches leg and turns towards off.

Hi,

OK, but who pays for the trip for the police. should it be Indian
taxpayers or cricket boards?

The investigative officers can probably come and take statements under
oath but who foots the bill for the trip which may be meaningless as
the concerned players may be innocent. But then concerned players
should have no problem coming to India at BCCI's expense to play
cricket and drop by for a nice chat and bikkies with the Police. Looks
like they don't want to do that. So, one wonders about their
innocence...

regards
Pranshu B

 Apparently this has already been done:
"Gibbs and Boje have already answered questionnaires forwarded to them
by Delhi Police regarding the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal that
was unearthed during South Africa's tour of India in 2000.

But the Delhi police have not ruled out calling up the two players for
further questioning when they visit for a two-Test series starting on
November 20."  Hindu, 2004

Phil.

And that would certainly be your prerogative, as it is Gibbs' and
Boje's.

To me, it looks as if Gibbs and Boje indeed have something to hide, and
are afraid of being arrested because they have broken some law in
India. Has anyone yet been arrested in connection with match-fixing?
Any of Cronje, Azhar, Jadeja, or Ajay Sharma? I don't seem to remember
any of them being arrested, which leaves me wondering what Gibbs and
Boje have done.

I suppose it depends on their responses to the Police's 'word' whether
further 'words' are needed.

I presume that you agree that the police would only want to talk to you
if there was something suspicious. If you had done nothing wrong,
surely you would be able to answer satisfactorily the relevant queries
without getting yourself caught.

Also what would be your view if the police was of your country. Would
you not answer their queries?

LOL.

So if the police say that 'charges will be preferred if either of the
gentlemen concerned arrives in India', would you think that either will
be willing to come?

Incidentally Bob, please inform whether you personally feel that either
have anything to hide from the Indian police. If not, please elaborate
why they should be worried.

Prakash

Tell that to Jean Charles de Menendez, shot by the British police
because they were mistakenly suspicious of him. Tell that to all the
people currently behind bars in the USA who were convicted with
railroaded evidence and bigoted "juries".

There's no obvious reason to suppose that the Indian police are any
better than the British or American varieties.

I might not want to - for reasons, see above - but it would probably be
a lot less easy to avoid than not going to a foreign country to get
arrested. But it would probably be easy enough to get a lawyer who
could make sure that I didn't say anything stupid.

At least in my own country, though, I'd have a good chance of knowing
what is legal and what is illegal. Somewhere else, it's not so easy.

Witness the case of the British weirdo plane-spotters who got banged up
in Greece for taking photographs of aeroplanes - their harmless hobby -
on suspicion of espionage.

I am scared enough of being interviewed by the British police that I
don't want it to happen. Being interviewed by foreign police is enough
to terrify me, even though I don't think I've ever done anything worse
than consume *** (which isn't even illegal in some of the places
I've smoked it).

If it were the Metropolitan Police who had said they wanted to
interview Gibbs and Boje but wouldn't say whether or not charges were
under consideration, I would strongly advise Gibbs and Boje to stay
well away from the UK, whether they are double-dyed villains or
innocent saints without a blemish on their character - the risk of
getting railroaded into jail by coppers being over-zealous in a legal
system they don't understand is far too great to be ignored.

Cheers,

Mike

<snip>

There is little to disagree with your views on over-zealous cops.

However, it still doesn't explain why Gibbs and Boje are repeatedly seeking
'immunity from arrest'.  None of us have the right to expect immunity from
arrest from our host country when we travel abroad.  When I travel to
London, I don't expect the Metropolitan Police to guarantee that they will
not arrest me.  I just show-up there and hope like hell that I don't get
into trouble.  Similarly, when Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff come to
India early next year, I don't think they'd be seeking unconditional
assurance from the Indian authorities that they will not be arrested.  It
will not be sought, neither will it be provided.

Yet nothing prevents the Indian cops from registering a hoax case against
Vaughan and Flintoff and putting them behind bars while they are here.  They
have no choice but to have some faith in the Indian law enforcement system
and as a back up, some more faith in their own country to protect them in
case they find themselves in trouble.  Similar reassurance is available to
Gibbs and Boje too.

The fact that Vaughan and Flintoff (and Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis etc.
among others) don't appear to hesitating in confirming their trip and that
Gibbs and Boje have backed out, tell us its own story.

Cheers, Shishir

On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 16:47:38 +0530, "Shishir S. Pathak"

I have no idea what the Indian police are actually interested in, but
what occurs to me is this.

We already know that Gibbs and Boje were implicated in the
match-fixing scandal to enough of an extent that the UCBSA banned them
for a short period as punishment. The relatively short ban in
comparison to the one slapped on Cronje by the same people suggests
that their offences were pretty small beer.

In South Africa, where betting is legal, they've had their punishemnt
for the offences they've committed in South African eyes.

In India, though, where betting is illegal, the fact of having had
dealings with bookmakers may be enough to get them convicted of
something or other, and they may have no wish to take whatever penalty
Indian law would mete out for something which isn't actually wrong in
their own country.

However, they may well have information about those higher up the
chain which they could give the police, but, just as in many an
episode of Law & Order, they're not prepared to be interviewed about
any of those details if the only result is that they are going to get
arrested for the offences of dealing with bookmakers, whatever they
may be in Indian law, so they want immunity before they'll spill
whatever beans they have in case it turns out that anything they've
done turns out to have been an offence.

Cheers,

Mike

Indeed which as you say can be a problem even for the innocent, I
recently met Kirk ***sworth, the first man on deathrow in the US to
be exonerated by DNA evidence.  He spent 10 years on deathrow after
being accused of the*** and *** of a child, the only evidence
against him was a neighbor who thought he looked like an identikit
picture produced from two young children's account of someone who was
in the area of the ***!

Perhaps not, certainly not without an lawyer present, bad memories of a
cop's testimony after a traffic accident make me very cynical about
such interviews.  But then I would know that I had constitutional
protection etc.

I would certainly want to know I was letting myself into by entering
another country, what I might be charged with, constitutional
protections etc.  If there was any doubt about any aspect of the
situation I wouldn't go.  Boje was mentioned by Cronje in a phone call
and has always denied any knowledge of his involvement, the police have
apparently not said what they want to interview him about, he's
answered all their questions so far.  Absent any agreement with the
police about how the matter would be handled should they go to India I
wouldn't think that team management would want to take these players
because of the potential disruption to the tour arrangements.

Totally agree I had to give a deposition in a fraud case a couple of
years ago and the twisted questions that the lawyers asked to try to
make me say what they wanted me to say was amazing.  I felt very sorry
for the accused in the case and was very glad it wasn't me!  Being
confronted by 4 year old e.mails taken from the accused's computer also
made me glad about my circumspection in that regard, could have been
embarrassing.

Phil.

<snip>

Delhi Police is in no position to offer immunity against arrest to anyone,
leave alone a couple of known 'offenders'.  Even if they could offer
immunity as part of some special deal (like Gibbs and Boje would help Delhi
Police expose a major match-fixing racket in return for immunity against
prosecution), it's abundantly clear that Delhi Police don't really think
that these two are worth spending any unwarranted time and money on.  So
their position appears to be: 'Look, we can't offer any immunity; we'd like
to have a word with them when they are here and see how it goes; but we
don't want to take the trouble of flying out to SA or some neutral place to
interview them'.

This case simply isn't on their priority list.

It's all very well for Gibbs and Boje to say that they'd like to know what
to expect when they arrive here.  An Indian criminal lawyer (not Basrur) can
help them, not Delhi Police or BCCI.  Actually, given how things have turned
out, it would appear that they did consult someone and have been advised to
stay away.

Cheers, Shishir

Especially Boje, who wasn't banned at all.

Boje has always denied any involvement in Hansiegate and nothing
revealed at the King Commision suggested that he was involved in
anything untowards. He WAS mentioned in the telephone call between
Cronje and a bookie that the Indian police recorded.

Gibbs never faced criminal charges in SA because he never broke the law
IN SA. There were grounds for charging Cronje. Charges were not
preferred at the time because there was a possibility that the King
Commission could grant him amnesty from prosecution.

According to the BBC 'Gibbs, Boje, then skipper Hansie Cronje and
team-mate Piet Strydom were charged with "cheating, fraud and criminal
*** relating to match fixing and betting" on the basis of taped
telephone conversations between Cronje and a bookmaker.'

http://SportToday.org/

So that seems straightforward enough. The police want to do more than
have a little chat with Gibbs and Boje - there are actual charges
against them.