PARIS: France’s highest court on Wednesday ordered a re-trial of Papa Massata Diack, the son of the disgraced former head of global athletics Lamine Diack.

Diack, whose father headed the IAAF — now called World Athletics — from 1999 to 2015, was one of six men convicted in France in 2020 for hushing up 23 Russian doping offences in exchange for Russian sponsorship contracts.

He was sentenced to five years in prison and fined one million euros ($1.1 million).

But the Cour de Cassation, the highest court in the French judiciary, ruled Wednesday that the case be reheard at the Paris appeals court.

The trial in 2020 heard the prosecution allege that Diack and his father had overseen a corrupt network that set out to hide drug offences and delay or erase sanctions for doped Russian athletes.

As a result of hiding the doping cases, Russian athletes were able to compete at the 2012 London Olympics and 2013 world championships in Moscow.

Papa Massata Diack, known as PMD, had a high-profile role as a marketing consultant for the IAAF.

He remains in his native Senegal which refuses to extradite the 58-year-old.

PMD was found guilty of being an accomplice in a bribery scheme and of having embezzled funds to the tune of 15 million euros at the expense of the IAAF.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2024