Click to play videoNew Delhi: Pakistan pacer Mohammad Asif has been taken into custody in Dubai for possessing contraband drugs. Sources say Asif was carrying opium. He was detained on Sunday and has been under detention for the last 36 hours, sources add.
The bowler who had been playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the Delhi Daredevils was returning to Pakistan from Mumbai via Dubai when the arrest was made.
If found guilty, he could be punished with a jail sentence of four weeks to one year depending on the quantity of the contraband.
PCB has already initiated the diplomatic process to handle the case and Asif will appear before a magistrate later on Tuesday. Sources say he is likely to be granted bail.
Director, Human Resource and Administration of PCB, Nadeem Akram, has gone to Dubai to coordinate with the Pakistan Embassy and resolve the issue.
"He (Asif) was carrying a medicine prescribed by a hakeem," Akram said.
"He is still detained and no formal charges have been framed yet. His lawyer is meeting public prosecutor later on Tuesday. He is at the Dubai Airport detention center. The Paksitan Embassy is in touch with the UAE government," he added.
Editor of Cricinfo (Pakistan) Osman Samiuddin said, as laws related to drugs in Dubai are very strict, Asif's issue is going to snowball into something big.
"The basic information is that he has been arrested. He has been there since Sunday. The PCB officials have stressed on this that the amount he was carrying was very small. They're trying to deflect attention from whether there should be a broader distribution. Laws in Dubai are very strict and something big is going to emerge from this. They've (PCB) taken legal help. This is out of ICC because he wasn't caught at a match. But it's a criminal offence in a country where laws are very strict," Osman said.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi on Tuesday afternoon, PCB's Chief Operating Officer Shafqat Naghmi said, "We are not yet clear what Asif was carrying. Asif has been provided with lawyer and he is in good spirits. No chargesheet has been formulated. We will treat Asif as innocent till proved otherwise."
Asif is as member of the Pakistan team for the forthcoming One-Day International tri-series in Bangladesh.
This is not the first time that Asif has been in trouble. He was banned along with Shoaib Akhtar for testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid, Nandralone, just before the ICC Champions Trophy on October 16, 2006.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had carried out the tests before the team left for India to compete in the Champions Trophy. Both samples of Shoaib and Asif tested positive at the accredited lab in Kuala Lumpur.
On November 1, 2006, the PCB handed down a two-year suspension to Shoaib and a one-year suspension to Asif.
Both Shoaib and Asif appealed against the ban. A second tribunal was set-up and on December 5 the same year and both were acquitted. Asif was later withdrawn from Pakistan's World Cup squad with an unrelated injury.
Just before the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in 2007, Shoaib was rumoured to have hit Asif with a bat, leaving a bruise on his left thigh.
Cricket's other dope cheats
- Shane Warne tested positive for a diuretic before the 2003 World Cup and received a one-year ban.
- England international Ed Giddins was caught taking cocaine in 1999.
- Pakistan's Wasim Akram, Mushtaq Ahmed and Waqar Yunus were arrested in Grenada for possession of drugs, but the charges were later dropped.
- South African cricketers Herschelle Gibbs, Paul Adams, Andre Nel, Justine Kemp and Roger Telemachus were fined and reprimanded for smoking marijuana during South Africa's tour of the West Indies.
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