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Cronje case hearing likely to be postponed

The trial of Hansie Cronje for match-fixing is set to be delayed because Interpol has yet to supply evidence sought by India to indict the disgraced South African captain, officials said Thursday.

Charges against Cronje and teammates Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom were scheduled to be presented in a preliminary hearing at the Delhi High Court on Friday, Delhi Police Crime Branch chief Pradeep Srivastava said.

Top police sources, however, said police prosecutors will request that the opening of the trial be postponed because the Crime Branch is yet to receive details from Interpol it could use as evidence in court.

"The two-judge bench will say 'where is your case?' because Interpol has failed to send us even the basic details we have been asking from the agency for the past three months," a top police source said.

"We would be forced to beg for another date from the two-judge bench," the source said.

The police after slapping the charges against the four South Africans on April 7 asked Interpol to send voice samples of Cronje to match with tapes of his conversation with bookies secretly recorded by the police in New Delhi. The police also sought details of bank accounts in London and three other cities saying the bookies paid Cronje through these accounts to tank matches against India during their tour here.

"But nothing has come. Interpol after our proddings and reminders has just sent an acknowledgement of our demands. We do not even have bank details of the players or the bookies.

"The prosecution will be laughed off the court with what it holds at present," the source said.

A city magistrate on Tuesday gave bail to Rajesh Kalra, one of the two bookies arrested in the scandal, saying the police could not offer valid evidence to keep the man anymore in prison. Kalra allegedly gave a mobile telephone to Cronje to talk to London-based Indian bookie Sanjeev Chawla.

But the magistrate denied bail to Kalra in connection with separate federal charges that he violated currency laws to the tune of 400,000 dollars.

Charges that Cronje took money to throw matches hinge around the five one-day internationals South Africa played in India between March 9 and 19. India won the series 3-2.

Sources from the Central Bureau of Investigations said its detectives were now bluntly accusing Interpol for deliberately dragging its feet in the match-fixing scandal.

"We are keeping an eye on what's going on. It is clear the Interpol is not very hot with the requests of the Delhi Police, who are the prosecutors in this case.

"Some of the detectives are even saying that it is a racial thing and that is why this all-white agency is dragging its feet," a well-placed CBI official said.

"I say if he (Cronje) was an Indian player then by now the police would have been inundated with mail from Interpol," the source said.

A Delhi police Crime Branch officer added: "But Cronje has now accepted that he had been busy chatting with the bookies so we don't see why Interpol is even now reluctant."

In Cape Town, the disgraced skipper Wednesday admitted that it was his voice on the tapes, now with Pradeep Srivastava's Crime Branch. Cronje's pastor, Ray McCauley, was quoted by a South African newspaper as saying Cronje was only "playing with bookmakers" and "leading them on" when the recording was made and never intended fixing a match.