2023-05-27 15:05:26
This is a first indictment that could lead to others. The former Tahitian vice-president of the FifaReynald Temarii, was indicted by Parisian investigating judges for passive private corruption in the case of the controversial attribution of the World-2022 in Qatar.
This indictment was served on Reynald Temarii by the investigating magistrates in a letter dated Monday May 22, said Saturday 27 May the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), confirming a world news.
The former president of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) had been since November 2021 placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness in this case.
Contacted by AFP, Reynald Temarii and his lawyer, Me Gilles Jourdainne, declined to comment.
In this judicial investigation opened in 2019 in Paris on the designation of the emirate as host country, the investigating judges seek to know if the vote of former UEFA boss Michel Platiniin favor of Qatar for the 2022 World Cup, was obtained in exchange for consideration.
Read also : A bought World Cup? Since 2010, suspicions of corruption have weighed on Qatar
Le rolled the Reynald Temarii
Au heart suspicions include a luncheon held in 2010 between Nicolas Sarkozythen President of the Republic, Michel Platini and two senior Qatari leaders. But the magistrates are also interested in the volte-face of Reynald Temarii the day before the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar.
Suspended for one year by Fifa (International Football Federation) on November 17, 2010 for violation of the code of ethics after articles in the Sunday Times, Reynald Temarii could no longer sit on the executive committee on December 2, 2010 for the vote. The Oceania Football Confederation therefore had to appoint a replacement who would have given their vote to Australia in the first round of voting and then, in the event of failure, to the United States, Qatar’s main rivals.
However, Reynald Temarii appealed against his suspension on the night of 30 November to 1is December, when he had previously announced that he accepted the sanction and that he did not have the reasons given by the ethics committee allowing him to do so.
By appealing, according to the statutes of Fifa, he deprived the OFC of a representative during the vote. On December 2, 2010, Qatar won ahead of the United States, yet favorites.
Troubled Waters Expert
In October 2022, during a press conference, Reynald Temarii said he was the victim of fraud, explaining that he had received, before deciding to appeal, a confidential note from the consultant Jean-Charles Brisard informing him that the prosecution Swiss federal government planned to prosecute him for corruption, which was false.
He had claimed that, according to this note, a “waiver of the appeal on his part” amounted “to an admission of guilt and would compromise his defense”. According to him, these were false elements intended to push him to appeal.
In this section, an all-expenses-paid trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, between its sanction and the FIFA vote, to meet the Qatari influence Mohammed Bin Hammam, also intrigues the investigating judges.
As the payment of Reynald Temarii’s defense costs for an amount of 305 000 euros by Mohammed Bin Hammam. This sum was paid to Jean-Charles Brisard’s company, JCB Consulting, via a backdated agreement.
According to several sources familiar with the matter, Jean-Charles Brisard, a expert consultant on the question of the financing of Islamic terrorist organizationsalso placed under the status of assisted witness and who disputes any intention of fraud, was summoned on 22 May by the investigating judges. But this summons has been postponed indefinitely.
“We are rather satisfied to see that the file is progressing and that steps are beginning to be taken,” reacted to AFP Me Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for Anticor, civil party in the case. “Especially since it is not so common to move people from the status of assisted witness to that of indicted, which necessarily indicates a new analysis of the file by the judges.”
With AFP
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