ATR First: Patrick Hickey Could Avoid Brazil Trial

(ATR) Marcos Kac, the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor in charge of the Patrick Hickey case, tells Around the Rings "only time will tell," if the former Olympic Council of Ireland president returns to Brazil for ticket touting charges..

Kac spoke to ATRthis week following thefirst interviewwith the media Hickey has given since his return to Ireland last December.

Hickey was arrested in the final days of the RIo Olympics. He denies any wrongdoing and says his Brazilian legal team is "working flat out" on his case.

"Did he take that into account when he committed the crimes?" Kac asked.

Hickey spoke with the Irish Independentin an interview broadcast on Dublin Talk Radio 106.

Hickey is free on a $410,000 bail, the money on loan from the Association of National Olympic Committees. Hickey was the senior vice president of ANOC before he stepped away from his Olympic family roles after his arrest last August.

Now the likelihood seems that Hickey, 72, may not need to return to face a trial says prosecutor Kac.

"I think it will be very difficult [for him to appear]; only time will tell," Kac said. "When we gave him the right to respond in freedom…we did not imagine that he would return again."

While he still might face a trial in absentia, Hickey is bound to accept the result of the trial as a condition of his bail. Kac could not say when the trial would happen, referring that question to the Rio State Court.

Hickey says he is "totally and utterly innocent," of all charges brought against him.

"I was portrayed like some sort of world class criminal," Hickey told the Irish Independent. "That I was in some Mafiosa conspiracy or something like that, what a ridiculous situation. I am totally and utterly innocent of all these charges. The International Olympic Committee are fully backing me and fully supporting me in this crazy situation that I find myself in."

After his arrest Hickey was held in Bangu Prison in Rio de Janeiro for 10 days. He says that it was "disgrace that I was ever put in jail". He blames the time spent there as the cause of a heart problem.

Kac took issue with Hickey’s version of the events saying "he is a criminal like any other," and that his age should not have mattered in determining if he should have been held in prison after his arrest.

Hickey suggested that that media in Brazil had paid off the civil police for access to the arrest. As a result there were cameras outside Hickey’s hotel room when the police arrived early in the morning. He called the practice a "regular occurrence," that left him humiliated and exposed.

"There’s not a doubt about it that I was absolutely humiliated and treated in the disgraceful manner on my arrest and everyone in the world saw," Hickey said to the Irish Independent. "This is regular occurrence in Brazil. My lawyers in Brazil confirmed this to me, it happens all the time."

Kac, once again, disagreed with the assessment.

"It never existed that the media pay the police to act!" Kac said. "For the evil that he caused the [OCI officials] needed to be arrested, it is true!"

Written by Aaron Bauer.

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