The lawyer for suspended former captain Salman Butt on Saturday lashed out at a top cricket official who said he would be “disappointed” if players in a spot-fixing case were acquitted.

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat told the BBC he was confident of the case against the players.

“We need to send out a strong message and that is part of what we want to achieve,” Lorgat said. “We’ve worked hard at collecting all the evidence that we would require to make the charges stand. I am confident that our guys have worked very hard in ensuring they have got a case they can present which should stand the test of scrutiny.”

The ICC tribunal, led by code of conduct commissioner Michael Beloff, will hear the case in Doha, Qatar from January 6 to 11. The two other members are Sharad Rao and Albie Sachs.

Butt’s lawyer Khalid Ranjha said Lorgat’s comments were a “threat to the tribunal.”

“What Lorgat has said is tantamount to threatening the prospective tribunal,” Ranjha, a former Pakistani law minister, told AFP from Lahore.

“The ICC wants the judges to give a decision on dotted lines and this is not a good example set by the ICC official.” Ranjha, who also represented Butt in his unsuccessful appeal hearing, said he believed ICC was trying to pressure the players into boycotting the tribunal.