Paris (AFP)

Exhibit or "cloth of lies"? Lawyer Habib Cisse, one of the defendants at the trial of a doping corruption network in Russia, had to explain himself on Wednesday on a note found at his home, which details remittances of money so that athletes escape disciplinary action.

"S. Kirdyapkin (700,000 euros)", "Y. Zaripova (600,000 euros)": the note suggests that certain athletes suspected of blood doping benefited from "total protection" ("full protection") against sums 6 digits.

Why did the former lawyer of the International Athletics Federation (IAAF), commissioned to manage cases of Russian doping from the end of 2011, receive this document, seized by the police at his home?

Habib Cisse explained that he reacted with "amazement and astonishment" when he received this note, because the man who appears to be the author, the Russian trainer Alexei Melnikov, did not know "a word of English". But the president of the Russian athletics federation (ARAF), Valentin Balakhnitchev, would have reassured him: "Don't worry it's a mistake".

"I never imagined that this cloth of lies would be against me," continued Habib Cisse, 48.

The investigators found the trace of a transfer, a "reimbursement" of 300,000 euros received by the marathon runner Lilya Shoboukhova, after its suspension in 2014. However, this transfer came from an account associated with one of the other defendants, Papa Massata Diack, former IAAF marketing advisor and son of its former president, Lamine Diack.

Habib Cisse, who claims his innocence, had trouble explaining an exchange of SMS with the same Papa Massata Diack, where the latter asked him "to return the 50,000 euros received on the Shoboukhova case as of Monday", and to which he replied that 'he needs time to pay the full amount.

"I returned a few thousand euros to stop it (...) I owed nothing," he said, ensuring that he "never received a penny from Shoboukhova".

Six actors, including the Diack father and son, are on trial for corruption before the 32nd Correctional Chamber, in particular for having allowed, from the end of 2011, to delay disciplinary procedures against Russian athletes suspected of doping. According to the examining magistrates, this indulgence in particular favored the negotiations of the IAAF with a sponsor and a Russian broadcaster, the state bank VTB and the chain RTR for the Worlds-2013 in Moscow.

Scheduled for Wednesday, the interrogation of Lamine Diack had not yet started by the end of the afternoon.

© 2020 AFP