Mohammad Amir released from jail :

Amir is expected to spend the next few weeks in London before returning to his native Pakistan. He will meet his lawyers to draw up an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the five-year ban imposed on him by the International Cricket Council.

The Pakistan fast bowler, has been released from Portland Young Offenders Institution in Dorset after serving half of a six-month sentence for his part in a spot-fixing scam.

He has a visa to stay in England until the end of March and there is no suggestion that he risks the threat of deportation. 

An ICC tribunal banned Amir for five years in February last year, his team-mate Mohammad Asif was given a seven-year ban, with two years suspended, and the captain, Salman Butt, was banned for ten years, five suspended. Shortly after the decision Amir announced his intent to appeal the decision to the CAS, an arbitration body set up to settle disputes relating to sport. 

Amir and his two team-mates were sentenced in November 2011 at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat at gambling after a plot was uncovered in a News of the World sting operation to bowl deliberate no-balls in a Test against England in 2010. Amir and Butt lost an appeal against the sentence in November in the Court of Appeal in London.