KARACHI, (Reuters) – Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider will return home from London and withdraw his application seeking asylum status from the British Home Office following his allegations of death threats from a match fixer.
Haider told Geo News from London yesterday that he would return later this week after he held talks with Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, and was given assurances about his security.
Haider fled the team hotel in Dubai last November during a one-day series with South Africa, saying after reaching London that he had been given death threats by an unidentified person who wanted him to fix matches in the one-day series.
Haider later applied for asylum with the Home Office but on Sunday said he would dispatch a letter to the British Home Secretary (interior minister) seeking withdrawal of the application.
“My meeting with the (Pakistan) interior minister was very good and he assured me that if I return to Pakistan, I and my family would be provided complete security,” Haider told Geo News.
During his stay in London, Haider has also written on his Facebook page that there were corrupt elements within Pakistan cricket and he would soon expose them but he has not carried out his threat.
A Pakistan cricket Board official told Reuters on Sunday that when he returned, Haider would have to appear before the board’s disciplinary and integrity committees to respond to charges of indiscipline and violation of his players’ code of conduct.
The PCB terminated his contract soon after he fled the team hotel and also held back payment of his match fees and other dues. It ruled that the keeper should have taken the team management into his confidence over any threats he received.
Haider who made his test debut last year in England and scored 88 in the Edgbaston match was a member of the one-day squad against South Africa when he fled the team hotel in Dubai.
Pakistan cricket was rocked by allegations of fixing during the tour of England last year and three of their players were later given minimum five-year bans by the International Cricket Council after an independent tribunal found them guilty.
Former test captain Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif have continued to protest their innocence and the case will be heard by sport’s final court of appeal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
