An undercover reporter from the News of the World, the British newspaper at the heart of a phone-hacking scandal which has embroiled Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, denied Wednesday he used the practice to break a story about cricket match-fixing. Mazher Mahmood, the investigations editor at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid, rejected accusations that his expose had involved the illegal interception of voicemail messages, the Press Association reported. He told London's Southwark Crown Court he had received death threats since publishing the story alleging that a sports agent took bribes to arrange for Pakistan cricketers to bowl deliberate no-balls during a test against England last summer. Prosecutors allege British-based agent Mazhar Majeed conspired with Pakistan's former Test captain Salman Butt, 27, and fast bowlers Mohammad Asif, 28, and Mohammad Amir, 19, to fix parts of the Lord's test between Aug. 26 and 29. Butt and Asif, who are standing trial, deny conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments. The court had heard Tuesday that Pakistan players plotted to oust former ODI captain Shahid Afridi from his position by underperforming. Mahmood Wednesday said he launched an investigation after a secret source sent him copies of “incriminating” text messages from Majeed's BlackBerry phone showing that match-fixing had been going on for a “long time”. But he said the story “had nothing to do with phone hacking” and said he had no knowledge of the illegal practice during his 20 years at the News of the World. Asif's lawyer Alexander Milne said the messages were downloaded from Majeed's BlackBerry and asked the reporter: “Is this not hacked material?” Mahmood replied: “No, it is not ... One, you're assuming it's downloaded from the telephone without the knowledge of the person, and second this is nothing to do with hacking at all.” Milne also suggested that Mahmood twice met Asif in London pretending to be a lawyer called “Imran Sheikh” after the story broke on Aug. 29 last year. “I'm a guy that's been receiving death threats after this story, so the last thing I want to do is meet this cricketer,” Mahmood said.
