South African cricketer Herschelle Gibbs has claimed that a Delhi Police official had intimidated him with the death penalty while being grilled for suspected involvement in the 2000 match-fixing scandal.
The revelation comes in his autobiography ‘To the Point’ in which he writes that a “tough-looking old Sikh gentleman who headed Delhi’s murder and robbery team,” asked him to come clean or face the gallows while being interrogated in 2006, reported Times of India.
The officer referred by Gibbs is quite likely AS Cheema who headed the anti-extortion cell of the Delhi Police crime branch at that point of time. But presently posted in Mizoram, he could not be immediately reached for comments.
Delhi Police was quick to brush it away as childish since Indian courts issues the death penalty only in extreme cases and definitely not in a betting scandal allegation, which a police office as senior as Cheema would certainly know of.
Ranjit Narain, Special Commissioner (Crime), who headed the team of investigators who had grilled Gibbs in 2006 said: “To even think that a democratic country can hang someone for fixing is childish."
In 2006 Gibbs, who was reluctant to join the team touring India as he feared arrest, was accompanied by his lawyer Peter Whelan. A four-man investigation team of Delhi Police had then grilled him of his involvement in the match-fixing scandal that was exposed when Delhi Police intercepted a telephone call between then South African captain Hansie Cronje and a bookie.
Recalling the interrogation, Narain was then a joint commissioner (crime) said: "Yes, he looked nervous but he apologised to both the then police commissioner KK Paul and to me for the unparliamentary language he passed on me."
In his book, Gibbs writes: "I had publicly called Narain a 'hard ar**.' The commissioner wasn't happy at all and he even brought it up during the questioning. I had to apologise. His ar** was not so hard after all."
He writes how the Indian authorities were determined to nail him and his own lawyer had made a contingency plan to handle his likely arrest.
The book had attracted much flak from even the South African cricket enterprise with Gibbs giving lurid details of the sexual escapades during a tour to Australia when players indulged in groupies.
"As far as women are concerned, the Proteas' tour to Australia from December 1997 to January 1998 was like going shopping. From the day we set foot there, women were falling into our laps every night. They came hunting, often in packs," he writes in a chapter titled 'The Good Times'.