An independent panel set up by the Japanese Olympic Committee concluded Thursday that there was nothing illegal in the payments of 2.8 million Singapore dollars (2 million US dollars) to the Black Tidings company.The three-strong investigation panel said the Tokyo bid team had not intended the money as a gift and that the payments did not violate the ethics code of the International Olympic Committee. "I believe the suspicion of bribery by the Tokyo team has been cleared," Yoshihisa Hayakawa, a lawyer who led the panel, told a news conference on Thursday.The head of Black Tidings, Ian Tan Tong Han, has been closely linked to Papa Massata Diack, the son of former world athletics federation IAAF president Lamine Diack.The payments were suspected to have been directed to the elderly Diack, who then had a vote as an IOC member in deciding the host city for the 2020 Olympics.Papa Massata Diack, who served as an IAAF adviser, is sought by Interpol in connection with a French corruption investigation targeting the Diacks around the covering up of positive doping cases.In September 2013, Tokyo won the bid to host the 2020 Games against Istanbul and Madrid.- DPA

Source: The Nation Bangkok September 01, 2016 10:07 UTC