IOC Distances Itself from New Diack Allegations

(ATR) The IOC says any new information about wrongdoing conducted by former IOC member Lamine Diack will be "added to his file".

Korean Broadcaster SBS began yesterday a week long report on emails alleging secret lobbying between Samsung and IOC members. The emails were found during the corruption investigation into former South Korean President Park Geun-Hye. The investigation alleges a connection between Samsung and former President Lee Myung-Bak, who has also been charged with corruption, before the lobbying began.

President Lee, during his administration, pardoned Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee, who at the time was a voluntarily suspended IOC member. The pardon allowed Lee to return as chair of Samsung as Korea was bidding for the third time for the Winter Olympics.

IOC rules forbid sponsors from endorsing any bid, but the SBS report alleges that Samsung executives worked with Papa Massata Diack to produce a list of IOC members that could be lobbied by PyeongChang. The lobbying extended to then IOC member Lamine Diack through his role as International Association of Athletics Federations president.

"Any information about Mr Lamine Diack will be added to his file in the IOC Ethics Commission," an IOC spokesperson said after seeing the reports. "Furthermore, the IOC is supporting the French authorities as ‘partie civile’ in their investigations against Mr Lamine Diack. As far as his former functions in the IOC are concerned Mr Diack has already lost his honorary membership in 2015."

The IOC statement does not mention Samsung or Lee Kun-Hee. Lee resigned his IOC membership in 2017 due to health issues that had forced him to abandon his IOC duties. Lee had a cardiac episode in 2014 and has not been since in public since.

The SBS report does not say if Samsung broke any domestic laws through any of the lobbying, or if it is being investigated by French authorities. Diack is under a criminal investigation in France for his alleged role in purchasing votes ahead of the election for the 2016 Olympics and potential vote buying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Jeon Byeong Nam the reporter at SBS involved with the reports, told Around the Rings that all attempts to reach the IOC were rebuffed when preparing the reports.

"I wonder if the IOC is truly aware of the reports and even working with the French prosecution dealing with ‘PyeongChang scandals,’ Nam said in an email. "I’ve also tried to have a meeting with French prosecution but it failed.

"SBS will keep broadcasting the series of our news reports every night."

The full cache of SBS reports can be found here.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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