Tegucigalpa (AFP)
Former Honduran President Rafael Callejas, tried in the United States in the Fifagate corruption scandal, died on Saturday at 76 years of a heart attack in a hospital in Atlanta (Georgia), announced his family,
"We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved husband, father and grandfather has fled to the arms of the Lord," Norma Gaborit de Callejas, the wife of the former chief, said in a message. of State.
Born on November 14, 1943 in Tegucigalpa, Rafael Callejas, a graduate in agricultural economics from the University of Mississippi, in the United States, was the head of the small Central American country from 1990 to 1994. He then implemented a neo-liberal economic policy, with a sharp reduction in the state apparatus and the privatization of many public services.
President of the national football federation and former member of the Fifa Marketing and Television Commission, he was also one of 40 officials involved in the vast corruption scandal called Fifagate, which shook the world of football.
Rafael Callejas accused of receiving bribes for Florida Media company award, television rights and commercial rights to 2014 World Cup qualifiers from Honduras , 2018 and 2022.
The American courts, before which he appeared in December 2015, accused him of having collected 1.6 million dollars (1.4 M EUR) between March 2011 and January 2013.
Due to recurring health problems, his trial in the United States has been postponed many times. The former head of state, who suffered from leukemia, was to appear on May 5 in American justice to find out his final conviction.
The Fifagate had burst into the open in May 2015, with the arrest in Zurich of seven senior leaders of the very powerful international federation, at the request of the American justice which accused them of having collected some 150 million dollars in pots- of wine and retrocommissions since the 1990s.
Like other former Latin American football officials, Rafael Callejas had been suspended from all football-related activity in 2016.
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