Investigations into the controversial awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar are accelerating: the former Tahitian vice-president of Fifa Reynald Temarii was indicted on Monday for passive private corruption by Parisian investigating judges, a first in this case .
This indictment was served on Mr. Temarii by the investigating magistrates in a letter dated May 22, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) said on Saturday, confirming information from Le Monde.
The former president of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) had been placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness in this case since November 2021.
Contacted by AFP, Mr. 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 examining magistrates seek to know if the vote in favor of Qatar, for the World Cup-2022 football, of Michel Platini, at the boss of UEFA, was obtained in exchange for consideration.
At the heart of the suspicions is a lunch held in 2010 between Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of the Republic, Mr. Platini and two senior Qatari leaders.
But the magistrates are also interested in the volte-face of Mr. Temarii the day before the attribution of the World Cup in Qatar.
Suspended for one year by Fifa (International Football Federation) on November 17, 2010 for breach 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 OFC therefore had to appoint a replacement who would have granted his 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, Mr. Temarii appealed against his suspension on the night of November 30 to December 1 when he had previously announced that he accepted the sanction and that he did not have the motivations of the ethics committee allowing him this appeal.
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.
In October 2022, during a press conference, Mr. Temarii said he was the victim of a fraud, explaining that he had received, before deciding to appeal, a confidential note from the consultant Jean-Charles Brisard informing him that the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office 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, the assumption of defense costs for Mr. Temarii for an amount of 305,000 euros by the influential Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam also intrigues the investigating judges.
Just like an all-expenses-paid trip to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) between its sanction and the FIFA vote, to meet Mr. Bin Hammam.
This sum was paid to the company of Mr. Brisard JCB Consulting via a backdated agreement.
According to several sources close to the case, Mr. Brisard, also placed under the status of assisted witness and who disputes any will to scam, was summoned on May 22 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 file. "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".
05/27/2023 14:00:59 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
