PARIS (AP) — Former IAAF President Lamine Diack has been placed under criminal investigation on corruption and money-laundering charges, suspecting of taking at least 200,000 euros (US$220,000) from Russia to cover up positive doping tests, French authorities said Wednesday.
The French office that handles financial prosecutions said a legal adviser to Diack, Habib Cisse, also was placed under investigation by judges acting on evidence provided by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Diack stepped down in August after 16 years in charge of track and field's governing body.
Gabriel Dolle, who was the director of the IAAF's anti-doping department, also has been taken into custody in Nice in the south of France, the national financial prosecutors' office in Paris said.
It said three investigating magistrates are handling the probe.
The judges placed Diack under formal investigation on corruption and aggravated money laundering charges. Cisse faces only the corruption charge.
WADA first approached French prosecutors in August with evidence of wrongdoing, a senior official at the office told The Associated Press.
The official said Diack is suspected of pocketing "about 200,000 euros" to cover up an as-yet undetermined number of doping positives. The money is thought to have come from the Russian athletics federation, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
