Carlos Nuzman Trial Moves Ahead

(ATR) The legal process against the former Brazilian Olympic leader Carlos Arthur Nuzman has been restarted after being paralyzed for seven months.

The resumption of the trial was marked by requests from of the lawyers of Nuzman for several proceedings before Judge Marcelo Bretas at the head of the Court of Rio de Janeiro in charge of the case.

The request of the defense includes the sending of reports by the French authorities on the investigations of Lamine Diack and his son Papa Massata Diack and requests to the International Olympic Committee, Around the Rings is told.

They also demand evidence of contracts signed by important Brazilian entities with the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee chaired by Nuzman.

Nuzman, suspended as an honorary member of the IOC, is accused of paying for the votes of IOC members during the candidacy of Rio de Janeiro in 2009.

Nuzman is suspected by the Brazilian Public Prosecutor's Office of being the main intermediary between businessman Arthur Soares and former IAAF president Lamine Diack in an alleged bribery operation with African members of the IOC.

In addition, the Office of the Public Prosecutor says it has verified transactions of $2 million to the accounts of a company of Soares for firms of Papa Massata.

The businessman Soares Filho, currently in the United States, is being investigated as a possible donor of that money for the Rio campaign.

In its proceedings presented on June 17, the defense asks the judge to request the Municipality of the State of Rio de Janeiro to present the accounts related to the agreement signed between that municipality and the Organizing Committee of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

"It is important to verify what the exact amount and destination of the money paid by the Municipality of Rio was," says lawyer Joao Francisco Neto at Around the Rings.

The defense also requests proof of the contracts signed between the Federal Economic Fund and the company Petrobras with Rio 2016, "so that the exact terms of the contractual relationship are clarified."

The defense also wants to access the results of the investigations of the French authorities in the course of this criminal investigation in France in which Lamine Diack and Papa Massata were accused.

A direct international legal cooperation between Brazil and France allowed various documents to be shared between Public Ministries of both countries. Even the police operation prompted French authorities to question Nuzman during his time in prison in October 2017.

"It was an unprecedented and unusual performance" says Francisco Neto.

Lamine Diack is currently waiting in Paris for the decision of the French prosecutors if they will take him to trial or not while Papa Massata remains in Senegal as attempts to extradite him to France continue.

In addition to the accusation regarding the alleged bribes in favor of Rio 2016 and also of Tokyo 2020, Lamine Diack has been investigated for alleged corruption in the concealment of doping by Russian athletes in his capacity as president of the IAAF

Younger Diack, a former marketing executive at the IAAF during his father's reign, is suspected as an intermediary who handled negotiations for his father's suspicious deals and then drove payments through the international banking system.

"We know that in France the investigation has been closed and we want to know if the Diacks have spoken something about Nuzman" says Francisco Neto.

"We have the conviction that Nuzman has not committed any crime," he added.

The IOC is being asked to provide copies of the reports of the evaluation committees and the working groups of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, and the guarantees given before the elections by the Federal, State and Municipal Governments. in the case of Rio 2916.

The defense is asking the IOC for a list of voting members at the 2009 IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, its countries and functions.

Joao Francisco Neto considers these documents of the IOC very important, among other things, to confirm that the Rio 2016 candidacy had all the conditions to win without having to buy votes.

"We trust that the judge will approve these requests," he says.

Reported by Miguel Hernandez.