{"id":6952,"date":"2016-02-11T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/kenya-athletes-allege-bribery-in-doping-crackdown\/"},"modified":"2016-02-11T09:00:34","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T17:00:34","slug":"kenya-athletes-allege-bribery-in-doping-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/kenya-athletes-allege-bribery-in-doping-crackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya athletes allege bribery in doping crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

EMBU, Kenya \u2014<\/strong> Two Kenyan athletes serving four-year bans for doping at the 2015 world championships say the chief executive of Athletics Kenya, the country\u2019s governing body for track and field, asked them each for a $24,000 bribe to reduce their suspensions.<\/p>\n

Joy Sakari and Francisca Koki Manunga told The Associated Press that CEO Isaac Mwangi asked for the payment in an Oct. 16 meeting, but that they could not raise the money. They were informed of their four-year bans in a Nov. 27 email, but never filed a criminal complaint because, they say, they had no proof to back up their bribery accusation and also feared repercussions.<\/p>\n

Mwangi dismissed the allegation as \u201cjust a joke,\u201d denied ever meeting privately with the athletes and said Athletics Kenya has no power to shave time off athletes\u2019 bans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard stories, athletes coming and saying, \u2018Oh, you know, I was asked for money,\u2019\u201d Mwangi said. \u201cBut can you really substantiate that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sakari, a 400-meter runner, and Manunga, a hurdler, told AP they would be willing to testify to the ethics commission of the IAAF, the global governing body of athletics.<\/p>\n

The commission already is investigating allegations that AK officials sought to subvert anti-doping in Kenya, solicited bribes and offered athletes reduced bans. The probe has led to the suspensions of AK\u2019s president, Isaiah Kiplagat, a vice president, David Okeyo, and AK\u2019s former treasurer, Joseph Kinyua.<\/p>\n

Sharad Rao, a former director of prosecutions in Kenya who also has adjudicated cases for the Court of Arbitration for Sport, is leading the ethics investigation for the International Association of Athletics Federations. Sakari and Manunga\u2019s decision to come forward could be a breakthrough, because Kenyan athletes have been unwilling to act as whistleblowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is obviously the reluctance on the part of the athletes to come forward,\u201d Rao said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to stand out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As many as a half-dozen banned athletes have privately indicated to the IAAF commission that AK officials sought to extort them and that they feel their sanctions might have been less if they had paid bribes, Rao said.<\/p>\n

AP\u2019s interview with Sakari and Manunga is the first time Kenyan athletes have detailed such allegations publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat information would, of course, be very, very significant, very important for us,\u201d Rao said.<\/p>\n

Rao said he has been talking to at least one other athlete who may have been approached for a bribe, and that his first priority was to get responses from Kiplagat, Okeyo and Kinyua \u2014 all three of whom have flatly denied to him that they took or solicited bribes.<\/p>\n

Acting on AP\u2019s report, the IAAF said Wednesday it has passed Sakari and Manunga\u2019s allegations to the ethics commission.<\/p>\n

Sakari and Manunga, both police officers in Kenya, said Mwangi asked them for 2.5 million Kenyan shillings \u2014 or $24,000 \u2014 each.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him I\u2019ve never seen that much money in my life,\u201d Manunga told AP. \u201cEven if I sold everything, I wouldn\u2019t be able to get together that amount of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The athletes tested positive in August for furosemide, a diuretic banned because it can mask the use of forbidden performance-enhancers, and were sent home from the worlds in Beijing. They told AP the drug was sold to them by a chemist in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, who said it would alleviate side effects of supplements they were taking. <\/p>\n

The chemist testified in defense of the athletes to AK, saying he gave them furosemide to combat water-retention caused by the supplement.<\/p>\n

Compared to doping cases involving other athletes, their four-year bans appear harsh. World Anti-Doping Agency rules classify furosemide as a so-called \u201cspecified substance,\u201d distinguishing it from hardcore performance-enhancers like steroids or the blood-boosting hormone EPO.<\/p>\n

For specified substances, IAAF rules allow for lesser bans of no more than two years, or even just a reprimand and no ban, if athletes can prove they weren\u2019t at fault or negligent.<\/p>\n

To impose a four-year ban, the rules require authorities to establish that athletes intentionally cheated. But AK appears to have discounted the chemist\u2019s testimony. In the letter it sent to Manunga announcing her ban, AK said there was no \u201cplausible explanation\u201d for using furosemide and that the federation \u201ccan only infer\u201d she took it intentionally as a masking agent.<\/p>\n

Last year, Serbia\u2019s athletics federation imposed a two-year ban on 800-meter runner Nemanja Kojic for the same substance. He can return to competition in 2017; Sakari and Manunga were banned until 2019.<\/p>\n

They said they visited Mwangi\u2019s first-floor office together, seeking news of their case. During that meeting, they said, he asked for the bribe, dangling the possibility of shaving time off their bans.<\/p>\n

Both athletes say they are sure of the date of that meeting \u2014 Oct. 16 \u2014 because, they say, they went to the KCB bank together later that day to open accounts and deposit 600,000 Kenya shillings ($5,785) paid to each of them for being on Kenya\u2019s team at the IAAF\u2019s world relays meet in the Bahamas in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was waiting for us to give him money, so that this \u2018thing\u2019 disappears,\u201d Manunga said. \u201cWe left, kept quiet and later that\u2019s when our names came out and we were told that we\u2019ve been banned because we did not deliver that money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked us if we could give him something. That\u2019s what he said,\u201d said Sakari. \u201cHe asked for money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mwangi denied that he met privately with the athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy we avoid those kinds of things is because we know athletes are fond of making any kind of claim,\u201d he told AP.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not possible to give anyone money to meddle with your case,\u201d he added. \u201cI will contact the athletes officially and I will ask the athletes to come, the two of them, and like I said they are police officers, so we will have to involve the police force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soliciting a bribe is a crime in Kenya.<\/p>\n

The athletes have told their story privately to the Professional Athletics Association of Kenya, an advocacy group of Kenyan runners. The association\u2019s secretary, Julius Ndegwa, said Sakari and Manunga came to see him and a lawyer in January.<\/p>\n

The athletes spoke to AP in an on-camera interview in Embu, a ramshackle town 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Nairobi where they were housed in police accommodation.<\/p>\n

Sakari also raced at the 2012 London Olympics and 2009 worlds. In Beijing, she competed under the name Zakary, but Sakari is her preferred spelling. She indicated that she is now done with athletics, because she will be 33 when her ban expires.<\/p>\n

Manunga, 23, said she would have paid to return sooner to competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, those four years are too many,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I had the money, I\u2019d have paid. But I didn\u2019t have it. So I just left.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Andrew Njuguna and Tom Odula in Nairobi and Mutwiri Mutuota in Embu, Kenya, contributed. John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org or follow him at http:\/\/twitter.com\/johnleicester and on Facebook at https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/John-Leicester-Associated-Press-Sports-Columnist-579349882203298\/?ref=hl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EMBU, Kenya \u2014 Two Kenyan athletes serving four-year bans for doping at the 2015 world championships say the chief executive of Athletics Kenya, the country\u2019s governing body for track and field, asked them each for a $24,000 bribe to reduce their suspensions. Joy Sakari and Francisca Koki Manunga told The Associated Press that CEO Isaac […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":6953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6952"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}