‘BOOKIE’ SANJEEV CHAWLA SET TO BE EXTRADITED FROM LONDON TODAY, SAY OFFICIALS

NEWDELHI/LONDON: Twenty years after his name came up in the match-fixing scandal that changed cricket forever, alleged bookie Sanjeev Chawla—one of the main accused in the 2000 fixing case involving the South African cricket team—will be brought to India on Thursday. A team of police officers from the Delhi crime branch reached London on Monday.

This is the first successful high profile extradition to India since a treaty was signed with UK in 1992. Officials familiar with the extradition procedure said that the Delhi police team will bring him to India “possibly tonight”.

A senior Delhi police officer, who did not wish to be named, said, “Hopefully, we will get him back in Delhi by Thursday afternoon. One of our officers, DCP Ram Gopal Naik is already there with the team.”

Former Delhi police commissioner KK Paul, who had headed the investigation in 2000, said: “Chawla was in touch with Hansie Cronje. Cronje is no more but Chawla has other links too. When the case broke out he was in England. It took 20 years but the efforts of the Delhi police have paid off. The governments had been working to extradite him all these years. This extradition will set an example,” Paul said.

India-born Chawla moved to the UK in 1996. A request that Chawla be extradited was made by the Indian government on February

1, 2016. Delhi police said that Chawla had exhausted all options to block the extradition. New Delhi had submitted three sovereign assurances to an UK court about his safety in Tihar jail, where he is set to be lodged.

In July 2013, the Delhi police had filed a charge sheet against Chawla, 13 years after they registered a case in the fixing scandal.

In the charge sheet, police accused Chawla of bribing Cronje, based on tapped phone recordings where the late South Africa skipper is heard speaking to Chawla. The police alleged that Chawla was introduced to Cronje by an Indian-origin businessman settled in South Africa. In a 3000page charge sheet, police said that Chawla was in constant touch with Cronje during the 2000 series between India and South Africa, and accused him of paying around $15000 to Cronje in two instalments. According to Cronje’s statement, attached in the charge sheet, Chawla had also started threatening him.

The fixing scandal came to light after Delhi police intercepted Chawla’s telephone conversations with Cronje, where the two discussed details of how a match will be fixed. While the probe against Cronje was stopped after his death in a plane crash in 2002, the court will try Chawla under sections of cheating and criminal conspiracy—an offence that attracts seven years in prison, if convicted. Police said that after Chawla is produced in a city court, he will be questioned and then sent to Tihar jail.