IWF head suspended on graft charges

The executive board of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has suspended IWF head Tamas Ajan for 90 days, pending an investigation into charges of corruption levelled against him in a recent documentary aired on the German ARD channel, the insidethegames.biz website said late on Wednesday. The documentary which aired on Jan. 5 said weightlifting was fraught with systematic doping, with the knowledge of IWF which had commissioned the Hungarian anti-doping body (MACS) with supervising all large-scale competitions and almost all world championships. The film also alleged that since 1992, 23 million dollars have been transferred to two Swiss bank accounts connected to Ajan, with no record of the monies in IWF ledgers. The website noted that Ajan is concluding his fifth term as IWF head in May and is not running for reelection.