Saj Sadiq (01 February 2012)

Mohammad Amir has been released from a young offenders institution after serving half of a six-month sentence for his part in a fixing scam.

Amir, 19 was freed from Portland Prison in Dorset on Wednesday morning, sources said. He was one of three Pakistan cricketers who received custodial sentences of at London's Southwark crown court in November over a scandal that rocked world sport.

The former Test captain Salman Butt, 27, was jailed for two and a half years for his role as the "orchestrator" of a plot to bowl deliberate no-balls in the 2010 Lord's Test against England and the former world No2 Test bowler Mohammad Asif, 29, received a 12-month prison term for delivering one of the pre agreed no-balls.

Mazhar Majeed, 36, the corrupt London-based sports agent at the heart of the fixing scandal, was jailed for two years and eight months.

All three players are also serving five-year bans from cricket imposed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) after being found guilty in Doha, Qatar.

The fixing scandal emerged after an undercover News of the World reporter approached Majeed in August 2010 pretending to be a wealthy Indian businessman seeking major international cricketers for a tournament.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Cooke, said Amir was "unsophisticated, uneducated and impressionable" and "readily leant on by others", but noted there was evidence that he also discussed rigging an earlier match with a betting contact in Pakistan.

Amir, admitted bowling two intentional no-balls at Lord's, was named player of the series for his spells of wicket-taking against England in the summer of 2010 and received his award in an uncomfortable ceremony for the ECB.

Amir became the youngest cricketer ever to take 50 Test wickets and was earmarked as a star of the future.

Amir and Butt failed in an attempt to have their sentences reduced at the court of appeal in November.

Speaking with PakPassion a lawyer who is very familiar with the workings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport stated.

What I can tell you about the CAS from previous fixing cases is that they were hard with the parties found guilty for such an offense.

First, a referee was life banned from football because he had a contact with match fixers and he did not report it. Even when the fix of the game was not proven, the mere contact was punished with a life ban.

The UEFA regulations applicable where wide, sanctioning fixing offenses from a sanction to a life ban, and UEFA took the harder approach, and it was supported by CAS considering that it was a referee.

In another case, a club was thrown out from UEFA competitions for 8 years and his president life banned, while the team captain was acquitted for lack of evidence.

In the last football case with a decision yet a player was sentenced for a year for not reporting a contact and another player was acquitted for lack of evidence he was also in contact with the fixers.

Now there is a pending case between to Ukranian clubs (a hearing will be held in February) and the case of the tennis player where an award will be issued soon.

While much depends on the specific regulations of the particular sport (if they sanction fixing with 5 years, CAS will never punish him harder) in the few cases CAS backed the strong response given by sporting authorities to fixing problem.

Even without proving a fix they sentenced a referee for life just for omitting to report a contact.

All three football cases are a product of the criminal case dealt by the german authorities in bochum and the criminal evidence gathered in that case was admitted fully by CAS.

Since the sanctions are strong CAS sets the standard of proof really high, so when there are doubts they acquit, but if the offense is proven, they tend to support federations in order to tackle this problematic issue.

CAS ruled in previous fixing cases using the same burden of proof as in doping cases.

There where only 3 cases but if you take this into account you might say:

Age and lack of experience is a factor to be taken into account to reduce the ban.

The same for lack of previous offenses.

But if the council already applied the minimum it will be hard to reduce the sanction. Again, the facts you mentioned are mitigation factors.

The test for a sanction is called the proportionality test. So if the sanction is proportionate CAS will not reduce it.

If the fix is proved, then the only thing left is a reduction of the sanction.

Young age might be a ground for such a reduction, but if the player received the minimum sanction is hard to get a reduction.

Other option, but more unlikely is that cas considers the ban disproportionate for a first offense. For doping 2 years was admitted as proportional so, maybe 5 years is too much, but match fixing is treated harsh by the CAS.