Former IAAF chief under doping cloud
PARIS: Former IAAF President Lamine Diack has been placed under criminal investigation on corruption and money-laundering charges, suspected of taking at least 200,000 euros ($220,000) from Russia to cover up positive doping tests, French authorities said Wednesday.
The French office that handles financial prosecutions said a legal adviser to Diack, Habib Cisse, also was placed under investigation by judges acting on evidence provided by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Diack stepped down in August after 16 years in charge of track and field's governing body.
With football officials at FIFA also facing criminal investigations for alleged corruption, two of the most powerful governing bodies in sports are now operating under dark clouds with their credibility at risk.
The French prosecutors' office said three investigating magistrates are handling the Diack probe.
Gabriel Dolle, who was the director of the IAAF's anti-doping department, also has been taken into custody in Nice in the south of France, the national financial prosecutors' office in Paris said.
Police also visited the IAAF headquarters in Monaco on Tuesday "to carry out interviews and to access documentation," the IAAF said. UNDER INVESTIGATION French judges placed Diack under formal investigation on corruption and aggravated money-laundering charges. Cisse faces only the corruption charge. The IAAF said it is "fully cooperating with all investigations as it has been from the beginning of the process."
Sebastian Coe, who succeeded Diack as IAAF president, was in the organization's offices when the French police arrived. He volunteered himself for questioning and was questioned, the IAAF said. The police also took away some documents.
WADA first approached French prosecutors in August with evidence of wrongdoing, a senior official at the prosecutors' office told The Associated Press.
The official said Diack is suspected of pocketing "about 200,000 euros" to cover up an as-yet undetermined number of doping positives. The money is thought to have come from the Russian athletics federation, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
"God knows what's going on there," Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko told Russian news agency Tass. "We've already said that our federation had problems. The old management isn't working there anymore. Understand that there are a lot of criminal cases going on in the world right now and those are unclear cases."
Allegations made in a German television documentary last year of widespread doping and cover-ups in Russia, a track and field superpower, are shaking the sport to its core.