Former head of world athletics Lamine Diack sentenced to four years in prison for soliciting €3.45m in bribes

Lamine Diack served as IAAF president between 1999 and 2015 (Martin Rickett/PA)

Lamine Diack, the former head of world athletics, has been sentenced to four years in prison, two of them suspended, by a French court for his part in a corruption scandal.

A statement from the French ministry of justice confirmed the sentence for the 87-year-old from Senegal, who had been charged with directly or indirectly soliciting €3.45m in bribes from athletes, many of them Russian, to cover up positive drug tests.