Former world athletics boss Lamine Diack dead at 88

Former world athletics boss Lamine Diack died overnight from Thursday 2 to Friday 3 December at the age of 88 in Dakar, Senegal. His son, Pape Massata Diack, confirmed to RFI this information given by a member of his family earlier. He returned to his country last May, after being detained in France for years on a corruption case.

Lamine Diack headed the International Athletics Federation (formerly IAAF now World Athletics) from 1999 to 2015. He returned to Senegal in May, for the first time since his indictment in 2015. He had been detained in France for several years because of an alleged corruption case around doping in Russia. In September 2020, he was sentenced by French justice to four years in prison, two of which is closed, and a fine of 500,000 euros for corruption and breach of trust. He had appealed against this conviction and a date for a new trial remained to be determined.

His indictment in another case, still not tried, had prevented him from returning to Senegal. He had had his passport confiscated as part of the judicial review imposed by the judges. In this second case, Mr. Diack had been indicted since March 27, 2019, still for corruption, within the framework of the attributions of the Olympics-2016 in Rio and 2020 in Tokyo, but also in the processes of attribution of the Worlds of Beijing athletics in 2015, then the 2017 and 2019 Worlds, for which Qatar was a candidate.

The judge in charge of the investigations had, before his return to Senegal in May, lifted his ban on leaving French territory against the payment of a deposit of 500,000 euros corresponding to the fine incurred, and on condition that he continues to respond. to judicial summons. A Senegalese football club, Dakar’s Jaraaf (which plays in the first division), had sold part of its land assets to pay the deposit. Lamine Diack was twice president of Jaraaf, in the 1970s and 2000s.