By IANS
New Delhi : Former South African cricketer Nicky Boje, in India playing for the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL), was Tuesday questioned in the 2000 match-fixing scandal case prised open by Delhi Police Crime Branch.
“Boje was questioned at the Delhi Police Officers’ mess in Darya Ganj (in old Delhi),” said a senior police official. “We will brief the media only after his questioning is over.”
Accompanying Boje was an official of the South African high commission, who left once the questioning started around 11 a.m.
Last week, Delhi Police had summoned Boje asking him if he could throw more light on the 2000 match-fixing scandal.
For the past two weeks, Boje has been playing a Twenty20 tournament organised by ICL in Panchukla, Haryana.
Boje had skipped two visits of his team to India after the 2000 scandal. He claimed that once that the South African cricket board did not select him and he was not selected for the ICC Champions Trophy.
Last year, the police had questioned Herschelle Gibbs, another South African player, during the ICC Champions Trophy here for his alleged involvement in the case.
The police had no option but to let him off as evidence against him was wanting with the main accused, former South African skipper Hansie Cronje, dying in a plane crash five years ago.
Gibbs was questioned after diplomatic immunity was promised to him.
Gibbs is one of the accused in the first information report (FIR) registered in April 2000 under charges of cheating, fraud and criminal conspiracy along with the late Cronje, Boje, Pieter Strydom and Henry Williams.
Cronje, who admitted to involvement in match fixing, was served a life ban by the King’s Commission before he died in 2002.
Sanjeev Chawla, the bookie who offered money to Cronje to under-perform, remains in hiding in London for the last six years and has refused to appear before the police despite repeated summons.
Kishen Kumar and Rajesh Kalra, who were also charged, are out on bail.
The 32-year-old Gibbs, who has played 79 Tests, had admitted to accepting money from Cronje to score fewer than 20 runs against India in a one-dayer during their 2000 March-April tour.
However, seven years after Delhi Police prised open the can of match fixing on the basis of tapped telephone transcripts, they have largely failed to make headway in the investigation. Still, the police have refused to close the case that has been hanging fire all these years.