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SPORTS:
CRICKET
 Going
For The Catch
South
African public prosecutor Shamila Batohi arrived in a blitz of publicity.
What was she here for and how can the investigation gain?
By
Sayantan
Chakravarty
It
was like watching the Pied Piper at work. Everywhere she went, Shamila
Batohi, the high-profile South African public prosecutor who heads the
Justice Edwin King Commission of inquiry into the Hansie Cronje match-fixing
affair attracted a crowd. Batohi, 39, had the media clutching on to every
soundbyte and even the crustiest senior officer of the Delhi Police and
the CBI gushed over the visitor and her grasp of the legalities of match-fixing.
 |
| Delhi
Police Commissioner Sharma and Batohi |
Naturally.
Batohi led the evidence for the King Commission. It was the first major
public inquiry into match-fixing, one which undertook the painful business
of interrogating the biggest names in South African cricket.
Batohi's
business in Delhi was an extension of her duties with the commission but
all she said was, "The discussions have been positive. There are
difficulties but we hope to sort them out." Batohi had asked for
access to two sets of taped conversations: one between Cronje and Sanjeev
Chawla, the missing London-based Indian bookie, and the second in Afrikaans
between Cronje and Johannesburg sweet shop owner Hamid 'Banjo' Cassim.
The King Commission also wanted the Delhi Police to hand over certified
official statements of their investigations. Batohi also raised questions
about the legalities involved in tapping Cronje's phone. Along with these
requests, Batohi wanted a meeting fixed with bookie Rajesh Kalra, a co-accused
in the case. And in the matter of obtaining Cronje's voice sample, she
is reported to have suggested that the Delhi Police interact directly
with Cronje's lawyers.
In the CBI,
where she met R.N.
Sawani, the joint director heading the match-fixing probe, Batohi exchanged
information on the links between bookie Mukesh Gupta, Mohammed Azharuddin
and Cronje.
But things
weren't easy for her or Captain Geoff Edwards, her colleague on the King
Commission, as Indian investigators too tried to play tough. The Delhi
Police said they could not give her official statements on the cheating
case against Cronje and his three team-mates because a chargesheet was
yet to be filed in the case. "It would be improper for us to give
her any documents. They can have them once we file them in court. Besides,
the documents can be used by Cronje's lawyers in South Africa to tamper
with evidence," Delhi Police Commissioner Ajay Raj Sharma told INDIA
TODAY. Also, Batohi did not have a letter rogatory (LR), a legal requirement,
to press her requests.
For its
part, the Delhi Police told the South Africans that Cronje's conversations
were legally taped. Permission was taken to monitor the cell phone and
the tapping began with the interception of threatening calls received
by a Delhi businessman. "Soon, from the underworld we were on to
the world of match-fixers," adds Sharma. In any case, the phone provided
to Cronje by Chawla was purchased in Kalra's name. Technically, the Delhi
Police were not tapping a phone belonging to the South African captain.
The police then ruled out facilitating any meeting with Kalra since he
is on bail; Batohi was asked to arrange one on her own. The police also
said that it had taken up the matter of voice samples through government
channels and, therefore, could not talk to Cronje's lawyers directly.
As things
stand in the Cronje case, there is a long way to go. The chargesheet cannot
be filed within this year. The Delhi Police applied for a LR in July and
had it routed through diplomatic channels only in the first week of September.
Among the requests from the Indians are details of Cronje's bank accounts
and printouts of his telephone conversations in South Africa. Simultaneously,
Interpol in England has been asked to locate Chawla. Batohi has promised
that the Indian requests will be expedited on her return. The Delhi Police
have found the King Commission's work very useful. "All statements
and confessions corroborate our evidence, including the statements by
bookies," adds Sharma. Now, if only the Indians and South Africans
speed things up, the Cronje case can be decided soon. And cricket restored
its lost glory.
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