Former International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president Lamine Diack faces corruption charges in connection with cover-ups of Russian doping, as French magistrates filed new, tougher corruption charges.
Diack had previously been accused of “passive corruption,” on suspicion he took around 1 million euros ($1.1 million) to cover up positive drug tests by Russian athletes.
An official with the Paris financial prosecutor’s office said that Diack is now accused of “active corruption,” which generally involves offering money or other promises in exchange for violating a rule.
The official told the new preliminary charges center on suspicions that Diack bribed Gabriel Dolle, the IAAF’s former anti-doping chief who also under investigation, to delay reporting of violations by Russian athletes.
The preliminary charges allow magistrates more time to investigate before deciding whether to file formal charges and whether to send a case to trial. Diack, an 82-year-old former long jumper, is free on bail pending further investigation but barred from leaving France.
The latest charges are part of a multi-pronged investigation into suspected wrongdoing at the International Association of Athletics Federations that has expanded rapidly in recent months.
Russia’s track and field federation was suspended by the IAAF, after a World Anti-Doping Agency independent commission found evidence of systemic doping and cover-ups.
A report in a french newspaper Le Monde on Monday alleged that another senior IAAF official, Nick Davies, tried to delay public identification of alleged Russian drug cheats ahead of the 2013 world championships in Moscow.
The French newspaper said it had a copy of an email sent by Davies to Papa Massata Diack, the son of Lamine Diack, who was working as an IAAF marketing consultant, asking what “Russian ‘skeleton’ we have still in the cupboard regarding doping.”
Davies, former director of communications at IAAF and now deputy general secretary and close associate of IAAF President Sebastian Coe, strongly denied any wrongdoing.
In a statement, Davies said the email “was brain storming around media handling strategies to deal with the serious challenges we were facing around the image of the event.”
“No plan was implemented following that email and there is no possibility any media strategy could ever interfere with the conduct of the anti-doping process,” he said.
