Asif, Butt desperate to get out of Wandsworth

LONDON: The lawyers for disgraced Pakistani players Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt are desperately trying for their clients to be shifted to an open prison but they are facing difficulties.
Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif and Mazhar Majeed have been sentenced to imprisonment for 30 months, 1 year and 32 months respectively. They were transferred to the South London’s Wandsworth prison to begin their sentences soon after being sentenced at the Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.
Wandsworth is Britain’s largest jail, holding more than 1,650 inmates behind its more than 150 years’ old Victorian walls. The prison offers drama and music classes to its inmates, as well as Open University courses, IT training and courses on improving behaviour. It has the largest Muslim prison population anywhere in Europe, currently somewhere around 450 and a majority of them are of Pakistani origin. The players have applied to be shifted to one of 13 open prisons in England and Wales. Prison Services take a risk assessment of the convicts to test their suitability for the open prison arrangement whether an inmate poses risk to the wider public and whether he/she is likely to escape.
The players are keen for the open prison because unlike a closed jail with high security, an open prison is based on trust as there are no security fences, no locks on doors and no harsh surveillance. In open prison, a prisoner can walk out and come back at his free will. If an inmate breaches the trust, he is then punished with being sent to a prison with harsher regime and liberties are taken away.
Legal expert Mohammed Amjad of Legal Rights Partnership explained that whilst the players may crave for better open prison conditions there is a real risk that their requests for transfers to open conditions will be refused because of their immigration status.
“Both Butt and Asif face deportation on completion of their sentences. Anyone sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment is subject to automatic deportation unless they can show that their exclusion would breach their human rights. In reality their ignominy has only just started and soon they will have to face up to the reality of exclusion from the ‘home of cricket’ altogether.
“Amir’s position is somewhat different in that his custodial sentence was for less than 12 months. Therefore, he will not face automatic deportation but he could nevertheless still be excluded under the general immigration rules on the basis that his exclusion is conducive to the public good having regard to his character, conduct or associations.”
A report published recently damned the Wandsworth prison and found the culture of self-harming and suicide at a high level. It also found that many prisoners had not taken bath for many months. Racist graffiti and anti-social messages were found on the walls. The report said the guards at the prison facility used abusive language, and they were callous and uncaring, guilty of intimidation, racism and sexism. Pakistani cricketers are currently being held in Category B at the Wandsworth Prison which is a closed prison reserved for prisoners who are likely to escape from the prison and whose escape needs to be made difficult. The Category A prisoners are those whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or national security. They are sharing the category with dangerous criminals, terrorism suspects, serious crime offenders such as rapists, drug dealers, gun pushers, torturers and repeat offenders.
The lawyers of Pakistani players have argued that Pakistani players have committed a white-collar, non-violent crime and they are not likely to make a run under any circumstances, therefore they should be shifted trusted in open conditions and must be allotted Category D — an open prison where inmates are reasonably trusted and allowed not to try to escape, and are given the privilege of an open prison.
The teenage bowling sensation Mohammad Amir has been shifted from notorious Feltham Young Offenders Institution to a special secure rehabilitation centre for young people in Weymouth known as Her Majesty’s Prison Portland, a seaside tourist attraction town in Dorset, England.