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Stewart will still face questioning, says Condon CricInfo - 23 June 2001
Alec Stewart will still face questioning from the ICC's anti-corruption unit despite reports that Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta had refused to meet investigators. It had been suggested that the case against Stewart and other cricketers would be dropped because of Gupta's reluctance to speak to the unit. But Sir Paul Condon, who heads the unit, insists that Stewart will still face questioning despite initially giving a July 1 deadline for Gupta to come forward. "My unit will be meeting Alec Stewart imminently; the meeting will take place as arranged," Condon told the Daily Telegraph. "I had given that date because I did not want to drag things out." Investigators have twice met Gupta in Delhi, when the bookmaker confirmed what he had told the CBI about Stewart and others such as Brian Lara, Mark Waugh, Aravinda De Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga. "My officers have given statements of their interviews with Gupta and these will be forwarded to the cricket boards who are conducting their inquiries," said Condon. "In the case of Stewart, the England and Wales Cricket Board have asked us to conduct the inquiry, so we will use these statements for our investigations." The ICC has confirmed that investigators returned from India yesterday but Condon said they did not go there just to interview Gupta. "They went there in relation to other inquiries," he said. "The CBI are having an inquiry into television rights and also have an inquiry into the connection between cricket and the criminal underworld. "In the course of this, they took the opportunity to try and meet Gupta and remind him of the July 1 deadline." A report into match-fixing by India's Central Bureau of Investigation quotes Gupta as saying he paid £5,000 to Stewart during England's 1992-93 tour to provide information about the wicket and team composition - a charge the England player has always strenuously denied.
© CricInfo Ltd.
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