|
|
 |
 |   |
|
INTERNATIONAL NEWS EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Algerian IOC member dies
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- Algeria's Mohamed Zerguini, one of the IOC's longest-standing members and among those implicated in the Salt Lake City scandal, has died at age 79. Zerguini died Thursday morning in Algiers, the International Olympic Committee said. "The IOC extends its deepest sympathy to his family and friends," the statement said. Zerguini had been an IOC member since 1974, making him the eighth longest-serving delegate in the organization, which currently has 122 members. Zerguini was a former colonel in the Algerian army, as well as a minister and ambassador. He was president of the Algerian Olympic Committee from 1968 to 1984. Zerguini was one of 10 IOC members who received warnings following an internal IOC inquiry into the vote-buying scandal stemming from Salt Lake's winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games. Six other members were expelled and 10 resigned in connection with gifts and favors provided by the Salt Lake bid team. In 1991, a U.S. State Department cable from Algeria said: "We have a good shot in winning Zerguini's vote, and intend to spare no effort in putting Salt Lake City's case forward." Zerguini was reprimanded because his family made generous use of Salt Lake-paid trips, jet-ski rentals and gifts. In addition, former Salt Lake bid executives Tom Welch and Dave Johnson have acknowledged they sent $14,500 over three years to Raouf Scally, an engineering student in Atlanta, in the belief that he was related to Zerguini. In fact, Scally was a grandson of the late Moroccan delegate Mohammed Benjelloun.
| |||||||||||||||||||
