(ATR) Forty witnesses are in the process of being called to testify in the corruption case of suspended honorary IOC member Carlos Nuzman.
Nuzman’s lawyer João Francisco Neto confirmed to Around the Rings that testimony began today in Rio de Janeiro. Neto said he plans to call 40 witnesses in defense of Nuzman in the coming days. Some of these witnesses are in Brazil and others are IOC members, who will have to testify by Skype.
The dates for IOC member testimonies have not been decided, Neto said. O Globo reported that IOC member Prince Albert of Monaco and honorary IOC member King Wilhelm Alexander of the Netherlands are expected to testify. Attempts to reach offices of each member were not successful.
"The IOC has cooperated with the Brazilian Authorities since the very beginning, as it is in our highest interest to get this situation clarified," an IOC spokesperson said to ATR about the upcoming testimonies.
It is unclear if any other IOC members will be testifying in defense of Nuzman.
"The charge against Nuzman is very weak," Neto said to ATR about his client. "I've never seen anything like it."
Nuzman has been charged with corruption in soliciting bribes in exchange for votes for the 2016 Olympic bid race ahead of the 2009 IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark. Nuzman was arrested as part of a police operation "Unfair Play," a subsidiary of the ongoing Lava Jato corruption scandal.
According to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, Carlos Emanuel Miranda, former adviser of the then governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral, admits that four votes were illegally bought in the IOC in exchange for the election of the Brazilian city as the organizer of the Olympic Games 2016.
Neto believes that Miranda’s admission "is not worth anything," as it was used to get him released from prison. Cabral is currently serving a prison sentence for soliciting bribes for state contracts during his term as governor.
Around 10 persons are expected to testify today, according to Neto, including former members of the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, as well as federal, state, and municipal government officials. Soccer superstar Pele will testify later this month. Also, former Brazilian Ice Sport Confederation president Eric Maleson will testify today.
Maleson previously had sent letters to IOC Presidents Jacques Rogge and Thomas Bach about the necessity for the Brazilian Olympic Committee to "clean house". He told ATR he would be answering questions from the judge about his past roles in the Brazilian Olympic Committee and what he knows about "the vote buying issue which is already public anyway". He has already spoken with the Brazilian and French authorities about his knowledge which "confirms what other people have said before".
"We have to decide what kind of society we want to live in, the rule of law or completely lawless," Maleson said to ATR. "It is an opportunity for us to clean house and take away individuals who bring a bad name to the IOC, Olympic movement, and Brazil…and hopefully that experience will change the IOC for better.
"With Mr. Nuzman, they found a lot of wrongdoing, the investigators, but he has a right to defense like everyone else. It is up to him to prove his innocence. There is no doubt there is wrongdoing on the voting part of it, but the most important thing is to bring the credibility back to the Brazilian Olympic Committee."
Written by Aaron Bauer and Miguel Hernandez
For general comments or questions, click here .
25 Years at # 1: Your best source for news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com , for subscribers only.
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
