The trial of Lamine Diack, former boss of world athletics, was postponed at least Monday until June by the 32nd correctional chamber of the Paris Court due to procedural problems, announced President Rose-Marie Hunault shortly after it opened.
The trial, which relates to a system of corruption intended to protect doped Russian athletes, is postponed in particular because Senegal sent "very recently" acts of investigation which had been requested by the examining magistrates in 2016 and to which Dakar had never responded before, he said.
Among these elements, a hearing of the son of Lamine Diack, the former powerful marketing advisor of the IAAF Papa Massata Diack, a refugee in Dakar since the start of the investigations, and who has never responded to French justice. "PMD" is a key player in the case and was to be tried in his absence from Monday.
Corruption, breach of trust and money laundering in organized gangs
"These documents, we received them physically this morning [... could not study them", nor communicate them to the other parties, noted one of the financial prosecutors, Arnaud de Laguiche, showing the judges a heavy pile files. "We cannot pretend that these pieces do not exist," he added. The other financial prosecutor present at the hearing, Eric Russo, raised a second procedural problem in the international arrest warrant which had been awarded by French justice against Papa Massata Diack.
At 86, the Senegalese Lamine Diack, who reigned from 1999 to 2015 on the IAAF, had to answer for crimes of active and passive corruption, breach of trust and money laundering in an organized gang. He faces up to ten years in prison and a heavy fine.
Sport
Doping: Russian athletes launch into a big fight against their federation
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- IAAF
- Corruption
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- Athletics