IOC Expels Six Members Linked to Bribery Scandal

The International Olympic Committee, attempting to regain public confidence amid the most damaging scandal in its history, on Wednesday expelled six members for allegedly accepting bribes in connection with the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Members also gave IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch an overwhelming vote of confidence after he accepted responsibility for the development of the crisis and said that he would like to oversee long-term changes to his organization.

The six members were the only ones recommended for expulsion by an ad hoc commission appointed by the IOC to investigate $1-million bribery allegations linked to the 2002 Winter Games.

Thirty-four members, including four who resigned, were implicated, although only one, Executive Board member Kim Un Yong of South Korea, remains under investigation by the IOC. Kim and nine others have received warnings.

With votes from two-thirds of the 91 members present at the Palais de Beaulieu required to ratify the commission’s recommendations, only one of the dismissed members, Seiuli Paul Wallwork of Western Samoa, came close to escaping expulsion. In the secret balloting, there were 67 votes against him, six more than needed for removal.

Utah investigators said Wallwork’s wife received a $30,000 loan from former Salt Lake Olympic chief Tom Welch that was later repaid, and that Wallwork’s family received more than $67,000 in travel benefits from Salt Lake.

The other members expelled:

* Agustin C. Arroyo, Ecuador: Investigators said Arroyo’s family received almost $21,000 in cash and benefits from Salt Lake bidders.

* Zein Abdin Ahmed Abdel Gadir, Sudan: Investigators found that his son, Zuhair, received $17,000 from Salt Lake bidders while a student at the University of Southern Mississippi, and that the IOC member also benefited from cash deposited in a French bank account.

* Jean-Claude Ganga, Republic of Congo: Investigators said he and his family received $270,000 in cash, medical and travel expenses and lavish gifts from Salt Lake. He also made a $60,000 profit on a land deal in Utah arranged by a member of the Salt Lake bidding and organizing committees.

* Lamine Keita, Mali: Investigators found that he “knowingly permitted” organizers to make payments of more than $97,000 from 1993 to 1997 to support his son at the University of Utah.

* Sergio Santander, Chile: Allegedly received $10,000 from Welch to help finance his campaign for mayor of Pirque, near Santiago.

In January, Dick Pound of Canada, an IOC vice president who headed the internal investigation, said those expelled were treated more harshly because their violations were deemed “more egregious”--the gifts accepted were more lucrative--than than those of members who received warnings.

On Wednesday, Pound said, “At the risk of being Churchillian, we are at the end of the beginning or very near the end of the beginning.”

Today, the second and final day of the special session called to address the scandal, the IOC will consider reforms, including a new selection process for the site of the 2006 Winter Games, the establishment of an ethics committee and the formation of another committee to recommend structural changes in the IOC.

In a speech to the members before the session began, Samaranch said he would like to oversee those reforms and asked for a vote of confidence.

“As your president, I accept the responsibility for the development of this crisis and, with your support, I accept the responsibility for leading the IOC through the crisis,” said the 78-year-old Spaniard, who is in his 19th year as president.

Members gave him that support by a vote of 86 to 2 with two abstentions.

That is about as close to unanimity as the IOC has come during a tense week that began with Executive Board meetings Monday and Tuesday. At the end of Tuesday morning’s meeting, Kim almost came to blows with Pound and Francois Carrard, IOC director general, over the continuing probe into allegations against him.

Kim sent letters to both Wednesday, apologizing, according to one source who read them, for his “foul language and martial arts maneuvers.”

Kim, who will turn 68 Friday, is president of the international taekwondo federation.

“Everyone was hot under the collar, reacting to the stress and strain of the week,” the source said.

In contrast, members described Wednesday’s seven-hour session as somber.

“I’m so old that I usually sleep during these meetings,” said a member who asked not to be identified. “I didn’t today.”

Until Wednesday, only seven members had been expelled since the IOC was founded in 1894, the last one in 1962 because he did not pay his hotel bill in Rome during the 1960 Summer Olympics.

IOC historians said no member had been expelled for corruption.

“It was painful for us to do it,” Pound said. “But if we hadn’t done it, it would have been very hard to move forward. We’ve at least done what we had to do as a first step.”

Each of the members recommended for expulsion was given 20 minutes to defend himself, and some of the presentations were described as emotional. However, that didn’t save them in the vote.

There were 72 votes against Arroyo and Keita, 76 against Santander, 86 against Gadir and 88 against Ganga.

Santander reacted angrily, noting that all members expelled are from Third World countries.

“It was a political decision,” he said. “The little countries are being made to pay.”

IOC member Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands complained because Salt Lake City’s organizing committee was not reprimanded. “It takes two to tango,” he said.

There were no IOC sanctions against Salt Lake because its organizing committee had acted soon after word of the scandal broke.

Frank Joklik, the SLOC president, resigned in January. The committee then got the resignations of Welch and Dave Johnson, an SLOC senior vice president and a member of the bidding committee.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that has scheduled hearings on the IOC to begin April 14, was not impressed with Wednesday’s moves.

In a terse statement, he said: “Expelling members does nothing to address the utter lack of transparency and accountability in IOC processes. What we must see are concrete reforms. These reforms must eliminate completely and forever a culture based on gifts and lavish travel that has brought a dark cloud over the integrity of the entire Olympic movement.”

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Randy Harvey

Tensions among IOC executives raise questions about the organization’s leadership. D1