FIFA case: Witness alleges threat to life

NEWYORK: A judge tightened bail conditions on a South American soccer official charged in the FIFA bribery scandal after prosecutors accused him of threatening their star witness by making a slashing motion on his neck.

The twist in a federal court in New York came after Alejandro Burzaco, a former marketing executive from Argentina, spent the day accusing Manuel Burga and two other officials, the co-defendants, of taking bribes in exchange for help securing broadcasting and hosting rights for tournaments.

Burzaco testified that his firm gave Burga, the former president of Peru’s soccer federation, $3.6 million in bribes. He claimed when he agreed in 2015 to cooperate against officials charged, he became the target of death threats. After news of Burzaco’s cooperation broke in Argentina, his brother, a former law enforcement officer, called him with inside information that authorities there had received “an instruction to shut me down,” he testified. That meant something needed to be done “for me not to say anything in the US, including killing me.”

Once Burzaco ended his testimony and the jury had gone home for the day, prosecutors asked US district judge Pamela Chen to jail Burga, saying he left Burzaco shaken by staring and using the slashing motion.

The judge placed him under house arrest in Brooklyn.

Burzaco testified that media giants Globo, of Brazil, and Televisa, of Mexico, teamed with a marketing firm to make a $15 million bribe to a FIFA executive to help secure broadcasting rights to the World Cup in 2026 and 2030.