Ex-IAAF chief suspected of taking bribes: Prosecutor

The former head of world athletics is suspected of receiving just over 1 million euros in bribes in 2011 to cover up positive doping tests of Russian athletes, the office of France’s financial prosecutor said on Thursday.

Lamine Diack’s family dismissed what it called the “excessive and insignificant accusations” and the acting head of the Russian athletics federation said Russia had nothing to fear from the latest scandal to rock world athletics.

Diack, the former head of the International Association of Athletics Federations, was placed under formal investigation in France earlier this week on suspicion of corruption and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The accusations revolve around the cover-up of alleged drug cheating by six Russian athletes, the prosecutor’s office added, including one who should not have been allowed to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

“The investigations will have to determine the origins of these sums,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said, confirming an earlier media report.

“It’s difficult to determine whether the entirety of it comes from the Russian athletics federation, but at least a part of it has gone through this federation.”

In a statement issued to Reuters, Diack’s family said 16 months of investigation by the IAAF ethics committee led by British lawyer Michael Beloff had not unveiled anything substantial so far.

“The coming days will demonstrate the insignificance of these surreal accusations,” the Seneg-alese man’s family added.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach Diack himself for comment. The spokesman at France’s financial prosecutor’s office said Diack was released on bail of 500,000 euros and banned from leaving the country.