Keba Mbaye, 82; judge served on International Olympic Committee

Keba Mbaye, 82, a Senegalese judge who held several key positions in the International Olympic Committee, died Thursday night at his home in Dakar, Senegal, after a long illness, the IOC said.

Mbaye was an IOC member from 1973 to 2002, serving as vice president from 1988 to 1992 and as executive board member from 1984 to 1988 and from 1993 to 1998. He had been president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the highest tribunal in the Olympic movement, since 1983 and chairman of the IOC ethics commission since 1999.

Mbaye was also a former vice president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

A close confidant of former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, Mbaye was instrumental in bringing South Africa back into the Olympic fold after the apartheid era. At the height of the Salt Lake City bid scandal, Samaranch put him in charge of a new ethics commission to police the conduct of IOC members. He also headed the IOC panel on legal matters.

Born in 1924 in Kaolack, Senegal, Mbaye studied law at the University of Dakar and earned a diploma in civil law from the University of Paris in 1957.