Former athletics boss Lamine Diack has died at the age of 88. Diack died of natural causes in his Senegalese home, his family announced on Friday to, among others, the press agency Reuters. Diack, who was himself a long jumper in the past, was a controversial figure: he was sentenced to four years in prison last September for corruption: as president of the World Athletics Federation, he is said to have accepted bribes worth millions of euros.
Also read: Former athletics boss Lamine Diack did everything for money
Diack led the organization from 1999 to 2015. In 2011, the first investigation into him was opened over suspicions of corruption. In the years that followed, it became increasingly clear that Diack had allowed himself to be seduced into bribery. For example, he would have kept silent about positive doping tests within the Russian team in exchange for millions in black money. He is also said to have played a dubious role in the allocation of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020.
Due to involvement in the cover-up of the Russian doping scandal, Diack was sentenced to four years – two of which were suspended. The former athletics boss was also suspected of money laundering, for which he has not been convicted. However, he has never been in prison; in his home country of Senegal he was placed under house arrest, from which he was released on bail. His son Papa Massata Diack, who was also active in the international athletics federation, was also suspected of involvement in bribes.
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