Judges adjourn Diack trial for doping cover-up

FRENCH judges yesterday adjourned the trial of Lamine Diack, the disgraced former head of athletics’ governing body IAAF who faces charges of corruption and money laundering linked to a Russian doping scandal.

Less than an hour after the hearing began, the trial was halted for procedural reasons and postponed until an unknown date.

The trial’s opening came five years after prosecutors began their investigation into Diack, from Senegal, who now lives under house arrest in Paris. Investigators have described a web of corruption that was rife in world athletics, including bribes and extortion to cover up positive drug tests.

Diack, 86, has denied wrongdoing. His lawyers said the accusations were baseless.

“He is someone who dedicated almost his entire life to the public and to sport,” Diack’s lawyer Simon Ndiaye told Reuters.

Diack’s co-accused includes his son, Papa Massata, who worked as a marketing consultant for the IAAF, now known as World Athletics. Senegal has refused to extradite Massata and he is being tried in absentia.

The trial had been expected to last two weeks, but prosecutors sought the adjournment after receiving several “rather voluminous” documents yesterday from the Senegalese judiciary.

They include the transcript from a November interrogation of Massata and bank documents.

Money laundering alone carries a jail term of up to 10 years in France.

Diack, who led the IAAF from 19992015, was one of the most influential men in athletics. His arrest plunged the sport’s governing body into an unprecedented crisis.

Prosecutors began their investigation after the IAAF’s ethics commission and Wada uncovered evidence a Russian marathon runner paid $683 000 to cover up a positive drug test, allowing her to compete in the London Olympics.