Paris (AFP)
Minimum service: tried in Paris for corruption, the former world boss of athletics Lamine Diack (1999-2015) assumed Thursday the decision to stagger sanctions against Russians doped to "save the financial health" of the international federation (IAAF), but he kept away from the more sulphurous aspects of the case.
Since Monday, the 87-year-old Senegalese has been on trial with five other people, only two of whom responded, for allowing the delay of disciplinary proceedings against Russian athletes suspected of blood doping, at the end of 2011, against the background of negotiations with a sponsor and a Russian broadcaster, the state bank VTB and the channel RTR, in view of the World Championships in Moscow-2013.
At the time, thanks to a new detection weapon, the biological passport, the anti-doping department of the IAAF had a list of 23 Russian athletes suspected of blood doping.
At the helm, Lamine Diack, dressed in a long white boubou, fully assumes and justifies some of the facts alleged against her.
- "Daredevil" -
"Who made the decision to spread" the disciplinary sanctions? "It's me, everyone said + daredevil president +", he declares, joining the version of one of his co-defendants, the former head of the anti-doping department of the IAAF, Gabriel Dollé , who admitted on Monday to having followed the instructions.
"It was mainly for the financial health of the IAAF," added Diack, because the revelation of so many cases would have caused scandal and weighed on negotiations with sponsors. "I was ready to make this compromise," he insisted.
If it is clear on this point, Lamine Diack, whose speech is sometimes disjointed, and not always intelligible, is less so on more sulfurous aspects of the file.
During the investigation, which lasted nearly five years, he also conceded that he had obtained funding of 1.5 million dollars in Russia, which he sought from the former boss of the Russian federation of athletics (ARAF), Valentin Balakhnitchev, to campaign in his country against the outgoing Abdoulaye Wade in the presidential election of 2012.
The pact was said to have been sealed at the end of 2011 during a trip to Moscow, where the Senegalese had been decorated by the then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. And finally, Abdoulaye Wade lost his political battle against Macky Sall, still president of Senegal.
But when the president of the 32nd chamber, Rose-Marie Hunault, questions her about this aspect, Lamine Diack is blurred. "It was they", the Russians, "who asked me if I wanted to be a candidate", he eludes, conceding to having mentioned the sum of "1.5 million dollars" before the Minister of Sports of the time, Vitali Moutko.
- "Rogue" -
Similarly, Lamine Diack claims not to have been aware of the financial blackmail exercised against doped Russian athletes, forced to pay several hundred thousand euros to be able to benefit from "total protection", like the marathon runner Lilya Shoboukhova.
And he claims to have "fallen from the clouds" when he learned, by investigators he swears, that his son Papa Massata Diack, then IAAF marketing consultant, was involved in doping records.
"He behaved like a thug," he attacks about the absent man from this trial. Papa Massata Diack, a key figure in the case, subject to an international arrest warrant, remained in Dakar and did not appear at the hearing.
The delay in sanctions allowed several Russian athletes to participate in the London 2012 Olympics despite abnormal biological passports, and for some to be medalists, before being ousted for doping years later.
Lamine Diack ensures that it was not planned in the scenario and that he had obtained guarantees from Valentin Balakhnitchev so that they do not appear in the charts. Thus, he highlights the case of Shoboukhova, who "ran and abandoned" in London.
"The idea that someone takes part in order not to win is to fake the results, it's not a sport!", Said the judge, Rose-Marie Hunault.
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