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Culture of corruption denied Olympic committee indicates action on Kim unlikely
Posted: Friday December 10, 1999 06:25 PM
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- The International Olympic Committee indicated Friday it has no plans for further investigations in the case of powerful senior member Kim Un-Yong following the U.S. indictment of his son, John Kim, in the Salt Lake City scandal. The IOC's ethics commission said it could investigate new allegations only if approached by an outside party or by the IOC's ruling executive board. Earlier this week, a senior official had said the ethics panel would be responsible. Meanwhile, the head of the ethics commission, set up earlier this year, insisted the IOC should not be judged by the members who were expelled, resigned or warned in the scandal surrounding Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics. "If there were just one honest man in an organization, I think that would be sufficient not to cast a shadow on the entire organization," Keba Mbaye, who is also an IOC vice president. "They are individual cases." "Even if it's 20 percent [who were guilty], I find that there are still 80 percent who are honest," he said. "That would be enough not to talk about a 'culture of corruption." A U.S. Justice Department investigation into the Salt Lake scandal has led to charges against two people so far. Utah businessman David Simmons pleaded guilty Aug. 3 to a federal misdemeanor tax charge. He said he helped create a sham job for John Kim, son of powerful South Korean IOC executive board member Kim. John Kim was indicted in September on federal charges that he lied to investigators and entered the United States with a fraudulently obtained green card. Kim received a "severe warning" from the IOC earlier this year for alleged ethics violations. In May, the ethics commission handed his case and that of Australia's Phil Coles to the executive board without reviewing them. It argued the board already had the cases under control. Asked last Wednesday whether Kim's status was under review as a result of his son's indictment, IOC Director-General Francois Carrard said, "There are no new facts as far as we are concerned. It would be a matter for the ethics commission." Commission members, however, said they have no power to initiate further investigations on the case, which IOC spokesman Franklin Servan-Schreiber said is "closed until there is new proof." "If there is something new the executive board [which originally considered the case] will consider it," he said. "Whether they deal with it or whether they decide to send it to the ethics commission, that will be their call." Ethics commission member Robert Badinter said that 'we will not be Scotland Yard or the U.S. federal attorney.' He insisted the eight-member body was responsible in principle for events that occurred after it was set up. "The revelation after [the commission was set up] of facts that happened before poses a specific problem," he said. "If at that moment we are approached by the competent authority and a complaint is submitted to us, we will examine what we are able to do in this situation, which seems exceptional to me." "We're working for the future," said his colleague on the commission, former U.N. secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar. "That's why we're not so interested in what happened before." Servan-Schreiber acknowledge that the commission "cannot be an investigative body." But he insisted a fulltime ethics commissioner to be appointed next year will be "very effective" in dealing with allegations of corruption. "If there is any new allegation that is substantiated, the IOC will deal with it, I have no doubt," he said. Meanwhile, Mbaye defended the exemption of IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch from rules limiting the value of gifts that can be given to members. "The rules that have been set up... are rules that apply to the members of the IOC so that these members of the IOC... cannot be swayed to favor one candidate city over another. The president of the IOC doesn't vote," he said. "Whether you give him a present or not, it's the same. He doesn't participate," Mbaye added. "I say that the rules that are established on presents don't apply to him."
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