The case seemed to be buried. It has just come out again. On Wednesday, November 6, the Paris Court of Cassation partially annulled the conviction of Senegalese Papa Massata Diack (photo above), son of the former president of the International Athletics Federation (IAAF, now World Athletics), sentenced to prison for corruption and complicity in corruption in the doping case of Russian athletes in 2011. Convicted at first instance, then again on appeal, he had been sentenced to five years in prison, plus a fine of 500.000 euros, for " passive corruption, complicity in passive corruption, corruption and concealment". A sentence that the Senegalese, now 58 years old, has never served, refusing to leave his country to surrender to the French justice system. The decision of the Court of Cassation will therefore not disrupt his daily life. It simply prolongs an already interminable procedure. Nevertheless, Papa Massata Diack sees part of his convictions annulled. He will be retried, the Court of Cassation having considered that the Court of Appeal had not sufficiently justified its decision concerning the guilt of Lamine Diack's son "on the charge of complicity in passive corruption ". A reprieve, therefore, but anything but proof of innocence for the sulphurous PMD.
