Samaranch knew about improprieties
Supporter: IOC chief was told of bribes and did nothing
Posted: Friday January 22, 1999 12:53 PM
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Samaranch is accused of turning his back on bribery repots AP |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch
was informed about bribery offers to International Olympic
Committee members but had done nothing about it, an Olympic Games
supporter said Thursday.
Prince Frederik von Sachsen-Lauenberg, a spokesman for the
Pierre de Coubertin Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, a volunteer
group which supports the Olympic movement, told of how IOC
officials were bribed with everything from diamonds to prostitutes
during the 1992 Amsterdam bid.
He told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that knowledge about
bribery and inducements of IOC officials went right to the top and
that IOC president Samaranch had been informed of them.
Asked how high the knowledge went, he said: "To the top. And
the reason why I know it goes to the top is my friend Jan Staubo
and Gerhard Heiberg of Norway have reported directly to the
president that they have been offered bribes and inducements," the
prince said.
"He didn't take any action."
The prince said Thursday that Staubo been with him in Amsterdam
when two African IOC delegates were offered the services of
prostitutes and left an IOC group in the company of two women.
"They left and went off on pleasure, entertainment," he said.
"They were looked after in that way and we knew what was going on,
sex was on offer."
He said one of the men was on the list of 13 delegates being
investigated while the other, still an IOC member, was not.
Sydney's Olympics Minister Michael Knight, however, said
comments from the prince should not be taken seriously.
Knight said the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic
Games had issued a warning to members last October about him.
"It was just `don't take him to be a serious player'," Knight
said Thursday.
"He belongs to some minor committee, he's not involved in the
conduct of the Olympic Games, he's not close to the IOC. He's doing
a very good job of getting his name around, but not much else."
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