Japan IOC Member Queried by Police

(ATR) IOC member and Japan Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda reveals he has been questioned by police investigating a suspicious payment made during the Tokyo bid for the 2020 Games. Takeda was a leader of the bid.

Takeda told reporters in Tokyo today that he voluntarily submitted himself for questioning last week by Japanese prosecutors on behalf of French investigators. The French want to know more about a $2 million payment made by the Tokyo bid in 2013 to a previously unknown bid consultant from Singapore.

That consultant is linked to Papa Massata Diack, the son of disgraced former IAAF President Lamine Diack. The Diacks are under investigation for bribery and influence peddling in connection with the doping scandal in Russian track and field. But the circumstances of the $2 million payment to the Singapore company known as Black Tidings, of which the younger Diack was an officer, have aroused suspicion that the money was funneled to the Diacks to win votes from IOC members for the Tokyo bid.

The vote in 2013 was the last for the elder Diack as an IOC member, as he reached retirement age of 80. In 2015 he stepped down as IAAF president when his term ended. Months later he was banned for life from the IAAF as evidence of his corruption mounted. He also resigned as an honorary IOC member in advance of a possible ruling by the IOC Ethics Commission calling for his expulsion. He is under police watch in France and cannot travel out of the country pending charges. His son is in Senegal, facing arrest if he leaves the country.

Reports for the World Anti-Doping Agency and the IAAF in the past year have delivered accusations that Diack and son took bribes from Russian athletes to conceal positive doping tests.

"I talked about the facts last week in voluntarily cooperating with the French investigation," Takeda told reporters.

"The JOC investigation has been completed and a report was released. I have also talked about this in the Diet and at news conferences. There were no new questions and I did not add anything further," he is quoted.

Takeda maintains he has no information about the money paid to the consultant for bid services. Investigations by the JOC and the Japanese parliament have uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing.

Written by Ed Hula.

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