Former track & field federation head Lamine Diack has been sentenced to two years in prison over a corruption scandal connected to Russian doping.
Diack was the president of IAAF, the international federation for athletics. He led that organization from 1999 until 2015. Diack was arrested in France in 2015 as allegations of corruption began to come to light. He was found guilty of corruption and breach of trust, while he was acquitted of money laundering. According to The Associated Press, Diack was involved in a scheme that allowed Russian athletes to escape doping sanctions by paying “hush money.”
Diack admitted in court that he slowed the handling of Russian doping cases “for the financial health” of the organization. Prosecutors said he solicited over 3 million Euros (about $3.5 million in U.S. Dollars) in bribes.
Diack, 87 years old, was sentenced to four years in jail, with two of them suspended. He was also fined a half-million Euros, or about $590,000 in U.S. Dollars.
That conviction came along with four others, including Diack’s son, Papa Massata Diack. Papa Massata was previously a marketing consultant with IAAF, and was found guilty of working with his father to divert funds through Papa Massata Diack‘s companies.
Papa Massata Diack was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of 1 million Euros (about $1.1 million U.S. Dollars). But he lives in Senegal, and that country has refused to extradite him.
Too bad he wasn’t convicted in CA, because we like releasing them here.