THREE senior officials from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) – the son of former president Lamine Diack and two Russians – have been banned for life for blackmailing athletes and covering up positive drugs tests in the doping scandal which has rocked the sport.
The body’s ethics committee said Papa Massata Diack, the former Russian athletic federation (ARAF) president Valentin Balakhnichev and IAAF treasurer Alexei Melnikov, a senior ARAF coach, “acted dishonestly and corruptly and did unprecedented damage” to the sport.
Gabriel Dolle, who was the IAAF’s anti-doping director, has been given a five-year ban.
Papa Massata Diack, Balakhnichev and Melnikov were found to have blackmailed Russian runner Liliya Shobukhova, the London Marathon winner in 2010, and made her pay a bribe for a positive test to be covered up. The ethics commission’s report said: “The head of a national federation, the senior coach of a major national team and a marketing consultant for the IAAF conspired together (and, it may yet be proven with others too) to conceal for more than three years anti-doping violations by an athlete.
“All three compounded the vice of what they did by conspiring to extort what were in substance bribes from Liliya Shobukhova by acts of blackmail.”
Lamine Diack, succeeded as IAAF president by Lord Coe in August, is himself under investigation by French police on suspicion of taking nearly £750,000 to cover up positive tests. The commission confirmed they are also investigating him.
Coe said: “The life bans announced today could not send a stronger message that those who attempt to corrupt or subvert the sport of athletics will be brought to justice.”
The commission’s report also refers to allegations from Russia’s deputy sports minister Yuri Nagorny that “at least” five other Russian athletes were also involved.
According to Nagorny, the report states, “a system was put in place at IAAF level under which athletes with an abnormal blood passport profile would be allowed to keep competing at high level in exchange of cash payments made to the IAAF”.
The IAAF said they were “angered” that their former officials had blackmailed Shobukhova but pointed out that those involved were no longer involved with the organisation.
A statement said: “The IAAF are angered to see that individuals have in the panel’s finding ‘conspired to extort what were in substance bribes from the athlete by acts of blackmail’.
“The IAAF have already introduced corrective measures to make sure this sort of interference can’t happen again.
“These four individuals who have been found guilty and sanctioned are no longer associated with the IAAF in any capacity.”
The commission confirms it is investigating Lamine Diack, from Senegal, and his legal advisor
Habib Cisse, who according to the report also played a major role in the Russian cover-up.
Cisse, Dolle and both Diacks are also subjects of the French police investigation.
Shobukhova was initially banned for three years and two months but this suspension was reduced by seven months after she turned whistleblower for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Russia was banned from international athletics competition after a report by WADA’s independent commission said the country was guilty of “state-sponsored doping”. It is unclear whether the ban will be lifted in time for Russia’s athletes to compete in this year’s Olympics in Rio.
A second report from the WADA independent commission chairman Dick Pound – said to be “explosive” – is to be published next week in Munich.
The report is expected to focus on allegations made by British and German media outlets of rampant blood doping, based on leaked information from an IAAF database.
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