Former international athletics federation (IAAF) head Lamine Diack denies having given money to finance Macky Sall’s successful bid to become the President of Senegal, his lawyers said in a statement to Reuters yesterday.

Le Monde reported on Friday that Diack told French police he asked Valentin Balakhnichev, then-president of the Russian track and field federation, for 1.5 million euros to finance political opposition in Senegal in 2011.

Diack has been placed under formal investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money laundering following a complaint from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) last month, allegations his family called “excessive and insignificant”.

Le Monde quoted from what it said were transcripts of Diack’s interview with the police and an investigating magistrate in November, when he was questioned on suspicion of covering up positive dope tests on Russian athletes.

Sall, 50, was the main challenger to Senegal’s then-president Abdoulaye Wade, 85, in the March 2012 election that was widely praised as fair and democratic.

“President Lamine Diack affirms that he never gave the slightest sum of money to the candidate, Macky Sall, who became President of Senegal, nor to his electoral campaign managers,” Diack’s lawyers wrote in a statement.

“Everything, both in his declarations to the police and to the investigating magistrate, demonstrates this.”

Reuters’ calls to Balakhnichev were not answered, but Le Monde quoted him as denying having had such a discussion with Diack or being involved in such an arrangement.

Last month, Russia was suspended from international athletics on the recommendation of an independent WADA commission, which had uncovered systematic state-sponsored doping and cover-ups.