The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has welcomed the decision by the Paris Court of Appeal for upholding convictions against former International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) marketing consultant Papa Massata Diack and Habib Cissé, former legal advisor to the IAAF president, on charges of corruption linked to the Russian doping scandal.
The court also found his father the former President of the IAAF Lamine Diack guilty for accepting €3.2 million ($3.8 million/£2.75 million) in bribes from athletes suspected of doping, to cover up their test results and let them continue competing, including in the 2012 Olympics in London. Diack was sentenced to four years in prison; two suspended, though he remained under house arrest, and was later released on bail and allowed to return home to Senegal, where he died in December 2021.
Massata was found guilty of siphoning off $15 million (£11.5 million/€12.5 million) to his companies when his father was the president and together they were ordered to pay IAAF €5 million (£4.6 million/$5.9 million) in damages for breach of trust.
The WADA report read in part, “Based in part on information provided by WADA, Mr. Diack and his late father, former IAAF President Lamine Diack had been found to have accepted bribes in order to cover up doping cases of Russian athletes so they would be free to compete at major athletics events, including the Olympic Games and IAAF World Championships. A number of other defendants, including Mr. Cissé, had also been found guilty of a range of related offences. As part of the original ruling, WADA, which was an interested party to this case, was awarded € 200,000 in costs and damages.
The WADA President, Witold Bańka welcomed the decision, which is a victory for clean sport. “WADA welcomes this decision, which is a victory for clean sport. It finally brings to an end a long-running case that started on the basis of information shared by WADA with the French authorities, who opened a criminal investigation in 2015. This case shows the importance of WADA’s collaboration with law enforcement agencies around the world as we seek to ensure that those who engage in corruption or try to cheat the system face the appropriate sanctions.”
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