Former World Athletics boss, Lamine Diack is jailed for two years and fined €500k after being found guilty of corruption in Russian doping scandal

Lamine Diack, the former head of world athletics’ governing body, has been jailed after being found guilty of corruption in the Russian doping scandal. 

The 87-year-old from Senegal was convicted in France on Wednesday, September 16, and sentenced to two years in jail after he was found guilty of accepting bribes from athletes suspected of doping, to cover up test results and let them continue competing, including in the 2012 London Olympics.

The court also found Diack guilty of accepting Russian money to help finance Macky Sall’s campaign for the 2012 Senegal presidential election, in exchange for slowing anti-doping procedures.

Prosecutors said Diack had solicited bribes totalling 3.45m euros (£3.15m) from athletes suspected of drugs cheating. The presiding judge said the former long-jumper’s actions had “undermined the values of athletics and the fight against doping”.

The court handed Diack a four-year prison sentence, two years of which are suspended. It also imposed the maximum fine of 500,000 euros (£457,000).

Diack was once one of the most influential men in the sport, leading the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) from 1999 to 2015. The IAAF is now known as World Athletics.