Washington (AFP)

US gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman to testify in Congress on Wednesday about the failures of the FBI investigation into sexual assault committed by ex-US women's team doctor Larry Nassar , announced Monday the judicial committee of the Senate.

Larry Nassar, 58, is in prison for life after being sentenced to several heavy sentences in 2017 and 2018 for sexual assaults on more than 250 gymnasts, mostly minors, committed over two decades within the gymnastics federation or in Michigan State University where he worked.

Considered by many to be the greatest gymnast of all time, Simone Biles revealed in January 2018 to be one of the victims.

The Senate committee, which will look into "the FBI's dereliction of duty in the Nassar affair," is also due to hear from FBI director Christopher Wray and Justice Department chief inspector Michael Horowitz.

A report from the General Inspectorate, an independent body within the ministry, was very harsh on the local FBI office in Indianapolis, where the boss of the gymnastics federation first reported the charges against the osteopath in July. 2015.

"Despite the extraordinarily serious nature of the charges and the possibility that Mr. Nassar will continue his actions, senior FBI officials in Indianapolis failed to respond with the seriousness and urgency that (the charges) deserved, made numerous mistakes. and fundamental in responding to them and violated multiple FBI rules, ”the report concludes.

The police, for example, waited several weeks before questioning one of the three athletes who had agreed to testify, and never heard the other two.

ALEX WONG Getty / AFP / Archives

Believing that they did not have enough evidence to charge Larry Nassar, they then closed the investigation.

The latter was reopened in May 2016 by the FBI office in Los Angeles after a new report from the federation.

The scandal, the biggest in American sports history, came to light in the summer of 2016 following an article in the Indianapolis Star daily.

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