A former member of the Brazilian Olympic Committee revealed letters he said he sent to the IOC eight years ago that "warned against awarding the games to Rio de Janeiro, and cautioned against the administration of Carlos Nuzman," according to Stephen Wade of the AP. Nuzman, an IOC member who headed last year's Rio Olympics, was held for police questioning last week for his alleged part in a $2M "vote-buying scheme to land the games in Brazil." Alberto Murray Neto, a São Paulo lawyer who served with Nuzman for 12 years on the BOC but was never a member of the IOC, warned then-IOC President Jacques Rogge about "investigations into Nuzman's financial conduct at the Brazilian committee, and about bylaw changes that allowed him to maintain the presidency." Murray has "long been an outspoken critic of Nuzman." He also has an "Olympic pedigree." His grandfather, Sylvio de Magalhães Padilha, was a former IOC VP and an IOC member from Brazil for "almost 40 years." Murray acknowledged his complaints against Nuzman "offer only circumstantial evidence that could gain credence now with the 75-year-old facing legal charges" (AP, 9/14). In London, Martha Kelner reported further scrutiny is set to be applied to the decisions to award the Games to Rio in '16 and Tokyo in '20 after investigations suggested "a central figure in the corruption scandal bought expensive watches and jewellery just days after both votes," with the revelations "overshadowing" Wednesday's '24 and '28 award ceremony. Documents allege that Papa Massata Diack, the son of former IOC member Lamine Diack, "spent hundreds of thousands of euro in French jewellery shops around the time of the Rio and Tokyo campaigns." The Brazilian federal prosecutor's office, which compiled the documents based on French prosecutors' investigations, drew the conclusion that payments could have been made to Massata Diack by Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 "with the intention to buy votes and the support of Lamine Diack, who held particular influence within the IOC" (GUARDIAN, 9/13).
