Pakistan duo Butt and Amir lose appeals against jail terms

Thursday, 24 November 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

LONDON (Reuters): Disgraced Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir, who were jailed for spot-fixing elements of a test match, lost their appeals against their sentences on Wednesday.

Ex-Test captain Butt, 27, received 30 months for his role in a plot to bowl deliberate no-balls in the Lord’s test against England in August 2010.

Fast bowler Amir, 19, was detained for six months in a young offenders institution after he admitted bowling two intentional no-balls at Lord’s.

The duo, along with fellow team mate Mohammad Asif, were sentenced at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Nov. 3.

Butt and Amir were not present at the Court of Appeal in London for the proceedings before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and two other judges, the Press Association reported.

A lawyer representing Butt had argued that his 30-month prison sentence was “manifestly excessive” while counsel for Amir urged the court to suspend his sentence.

Ali Bajwa, for Butt, argued that his sentence was “out of proportion to the seriousness of the offence that was committed”. Although serious, it was at the “lower end of the scale” of such offences, he added.

Bajwa described Butt as a broken man in a state of “ruin and disgrace”.

He told the appeal judges: “The very fact of conviction and imprisonment amounted to exceptional punishment for Mr Butt.”

Henry Blaxland, for Amir, urged the court to impose a suspended sentence of a length that would enable his immediate release.