GENEVA: Powerful International Olympic Committee member Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah said on Monday he had temporarily stepped down from his roles in the Olympic body amid an ongoing legal case in Switzerland.
The Kuwaiti IOC member heads Olympic Solidarity — the multi-million dollar IOC purse that funds sports projects globally. He is also head of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and president of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA).
Sheikh Ahmad did not give any details of the case against him but denied any wrongdoing. Kuwaiti media reports said the case was linked to a domestic issue.
“Sheikh Ahmad does not wish for the case into these politically motivated allegations to distract attention away from the excellent work carried out by his colleagues in the Olympic movement,” he said in a statement.
“Therefore, Sheikh Ahmad has today decided to step aside temporarily from his roles and responsibilities as an IOC member and Chairman of Olympic Solidarity commission, pending the outcome of the IOC Ethics commission hearing. Sheikh Ahmad is willing and ready to attend the hearing as and when decided.”
The IOC said its ethics chief had been informed of the Sheikh’s temporary departure from his positions on the committee.
“The IOC can confirm that the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer received a letter from Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah in line with the content of the official statement issued by his office this morning,” an IOC official said.
There were no details regarding the time frame of the ethics investigation.
The sheikh has been indicted for forgery in Geneva and faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years, city daily Le Temps reported. The investigation arose from a dispute with another royal family member, who is a former prime minister of Kuwait.
It was revealed at the weekend that Sheikh Ahmad and four other men — three of them lawyers — had been charged over an intricate forgery scheme linked to his efforts to prove that Kuwait’s former premier Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah and speaker of parliament Jassem al-Khorafi were guilty of coup-plotting and corruption.
The IOC said in a statement its ethics panel can intervene for misconduct “even if it is not related to sport.”
The Olympic ethics panel had confirmed last year it was studying separate allegations against Sheikh Ahmad relating to bribery in international football elections.
Sheikh Ahmad left the FIFA Council days after being identified in April 2017 as “co-conspirator 2” in American federal court documents.
The spinoff case of the US Department of Justice’s sprawling investigation of corruption linked to FIFA detailed payments from the Olympic Council of Asia to win influence with football officials. A member of the FIFA audit committee from Guam pleaded guilty and said he understood “co-conspirator 2” was the source of the bribes.
The Kuwaiti, who has been an IOC member since 1992, is a close ally of IOC President Thomas Bach and was among his supporters in the run-up to his election in 2013. Sheikh Ahmad is up for re-election as ANOC President later this month.
Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2018
