The International Olympic Committee has suspended former Olympic power broker Sheikh Ahmad of Kuwait for 15 years after his conviction for forgery was upheld on appeal this year at a Swiss criminal appeals court. (More Sports News)
Sheikh Ah꧃mad al-Fahad al-Sabah's sanction for “a betrayal of his IOC Member's oath, as well as the seriousness of the d🧸amage to the IOC's reputation” was approved by the Olympic body's executive board in a decision seen by The Associated Press.
The 15-year suspension starts from the date of his previous ban for a separate issue of unethical conduct, in an Olympic Council of Asia el꧋ection. That was a three-year sanc✱tion imposed on July 27 last year.
The sheikh, who turns 61 on the day after the Paris Games🐲 close in August, will be 74 when the latest punishment 💯expires. Under IOC rules his membership ends at age 80. However, the Olympic Charter allows the annual meeting of IOC members to expel a colleague for betraying their oath.
Sheikh Ahmad led the Olympic Council of Asia, created by his father in Kuwait, before joining the IOC in 1992. He was a longtime close ally of current IOC president Thomas Bach, whose election in 2013 he campaigned for.
The Kuwaiti royal “self-suspended” as an IOC member after being indicted in Geneva in 2018. He also stepped aside as leader of the global group of national Olꦫympic bodies, ANOC.
In January, Sheikh Ahmad, hi🐷s English former lawyer, a Kuwaiti aide and a lawyer based in Geneva had thei💃r convictions from September 2021 upheld on charges linked to orchestrating a sham arbitration case a decade ago.
The appeal court judges in Geneva changed the sheikh's prison sentence to a suspended sentence of t𝐆wo 🅠years deferred for a probationary period of three years.
In 2013, he presented video footage to Kuwaiti authorities alleging to show a former prime minister, Sheikh Nasser alsheikh nasser-💞Mohammed al-Sabah, and a former speaker in parliament, Jassim al-Kharafi, discussing a coup. They could have faced the death penalty for treason.
Lawyers for Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed and the al-Kharafi family filed a criminal complaint in Geneva relating to the arbitration case. The arbitration which was later judged to be fake had been presented to the High Court in London as part of a process that sought to verify th🍸e videos.
Sheikh Ahmad also was a senior International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) officওial from 2015-17 until withdrawing his candidacy for re-election when implicated by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn in steering bribes to football officials in Asia. He denied wrongdoing and was not indicted.
