Johannesburg - Eleven years after Hansie Cronjé died in a light aircraft crash, Indian police have filed criminal charges against him dating back to a 2000 cricket match-fixing scandal.
The charges filed in a New Delhi court on Monday involve six accused, including bookmakers and Cronjé – who died in a plane crash in George in 2002 – come 13 years after the scandal sent shockwaves through the cricketing world.
“There are six accused in this case – three of them are on bail while two are abroad,” Inspector Keshav Kumar, the investigating officer, told the court.
“The sixth is Hansie Cronjé, who is dead,” said Kumar, from the New Delhi crime branch.
Police presented the charge sheet to the metropolitan magistrate with the alleged offences dating back to South Africa’s 2000 tour of India.
Police named bookmakers and gamblers Rajesh Kalra, Krishan Kumar and Sunil Dara – who are all on bail – as well as Sanjeev Chawla and Manmohan Khattar, who are both overseas, as the accused.
The Times of India reported on Monday that two other South African cricketers, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Bojé, were left off the charge sheet because the police say they don’t have enough evidence against them. Gibbs and Bojé were interviewed by Delhi police in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
The Delhi police crime branch had revealed that an India-South Africa one-day international match played in March 2000 was fixed.
The police claimed that they intercepted phone conversations between London-based bookie Chawla and Cronjé which suggested that money was exchanged to fix the match.
Delhi police have alleged that he convinced three of his teammates, including Gibbs, to take part in the scam by offering them a share of the money.
Though Cronjé initially denied the allegations, he later admitted before the King Commission that he took $15 000 to leak information about forecasts before the match.
Following the King Commission, Cronjé, once the darling of South African cricket, was banned from cricket for life. Gibbs and Henry Williams were both banned for six months.
Gibbs is in the West Indies and Bojé in England. Neither were not available for comment.
Chawla is believed to be living in the UK, and Indian police hope to seek his extradition now that the charge sheet has been placed before the court.
“We will request the court to grant approval to seek the extradition of Chawla from the UK to India,” additional commissioner of police Ravindra Yadav said.
“The UK government does not allow extradition without the charge sheet. We are almost sure Chawla is in England,” he said.
Yadav said the case was one of “criminal conspiracy” and has been filed in court only now after police finally received voice samples from tapped phone conversations in January.
“This is criminal conspiracy. People went to the ground to watch the games thinking they would be played in the true spirit. They did not know the outcome was fixed. That’s why we have filed the charges,” he said.
Monday’s action comes after Delhi police chief Kumar told local media that he planned to file charges in the Cronjé match-fixing case and a separate Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal before the end of the month.
Cricket South Africa said on Monday the Cronjé saga had “run its course” in South Africa and they would not become involved.
Is seeking a conviction for a dead man as unusual as it sounds?
Professor Stephen Tuson, a criminal law expert at the Wits Law Clinic, says that while it’s certainly not the norm, Indian police may be trying to make a moral statement on Hansie Cronjé’s involvement in the match-fixing scandal by opening up this new case.
Cronjé initially denied taking bribes during the South African tour of India in 2000, but later admitted to accepting money to underperform. However, he denied the match-fixing itself.
Tuson told The Star that Indian police may be trying to ensure that Cronjé is found equally responsible for the scandal as the other accused – thus proving that their investigation is correct.
This would ensure that Cronjé is further implicated in the crime, more so than what he was willing to admit.
But the question remains if this would cast any further shadows on a man who died more than 10 years ago – and chose to use “the devil” as a scapegoat for his crime.
Tuson said that besides making a moral declaration to the court, charging a dead man was ultimately pointless.
He said there would be no way for the deceased to form a defence, and no consequences if he was convicted for the crime – at least in terms of South African law. – Shain Germaner
The Star