The former president of the International Athletics Federation Lamine Diack was sentenced to prison on September 16, 2020 in Paris.

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Thibault Camus / AP / SIPA

A former president of the International Athletics Federation in prison.

Lamine Diack, IAAF boss from 1999 to 2005, was sentenced Wednesday in Paris to four years in prison, including two years suspended, for his involvement in a corruption network doomed to hide doping cases in Russia.

The 87-year-old Senegalese was found guilty of active and passive corruption and breach of trust and was sentenced to a fine of up to 500,000 euros.

Lamine Diack has the opportunity to appeal.

To punish a "huge breach of probity which has caused worldwide damage", and even if it is "at the end of his life", financial prosecutors had requested four years in prison against the 87-year-old Senegalese, a figure of the international sport.

Diack and his 55-year-old son, who was in charge of marketing at the IAAF, were on trial for having allowed the delay, from the end of 2011, of disciplinary proceedings against Russian athletes suspected of blood doping, some of whom had been crowned at the London Olympics in 2012 (Kirdyapkin on 50 km walk, Zaripova on 3,000 m steeplechase) before being deposed for doping.

The Russians are not out of the woods

Behind this indulgence, an incredible deal, revealed by Lamine Diack himself during the investigation: the renewal of the IAAF sponsorship and broadcasting contracts with the Russian state bank VTB and the public television RTR, as well as funds to finance the opposition to outgoing Abdoulaye Wade during the 2012 presidential election in Senegal.

The case generated the scandal of the institutional doping system in Russia, which could cost the country of Vladimir Putin its place at the 2020 Olympics next summer.

Lamine Diack was also prosecuted for helping his son to capture several million euros in negotiations with sponsors.

Key actor, remained in Dakar and tried in his absence, Papa Massata Diack is targeted by the heaviest requisitions: five years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros.

Sport

Doping: A sports cataclysm threatens Russia

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  • Doping

  • Corruption

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