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Rugby: Laporte and Altrad are released from custody

2020-09-23T20:38:02.910Z


Both suspected of conflict of interest, the president of the French Rugby Federation and the businessman came out free


The ball is now in the court of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF).

Bernard Laporte and Mohed Altrad were released from custody this Wednesday evening.

No charge has yet been brought against the president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) and the businessman, big money maker of tricolor rugby.

The vice-president of the FFR, Serge Simon, the director general of the organizing committee for the 2023 World Cup, Claude Atcher, as well as Nicolas Hourquet, responsible for international relations of the FFR, had also been heard since Tuesday morning in the premises of the Economic Crime Repression Brigade (BRDE).

None of the five detained has been charged.

What does justice reproach these five men, whose lawyers unanimously denounced the calendar of police custody which takes place 10 days before the elections for the head of the FFR, a ballot for which Bernard Laporte is also a candidate for his own succession?

She is interested in the relationship between the boss of French rugby and businessman Mohed Altrad, leader of the eponymous construction group and essential in the financing of tricolor rugby in recent years.

And now, what next?

The investigators questioned the quintet on the sponsorship contract linking the construction group to the XV of France, but also on the company's support for the French candidacy for the organization of the 2023 World Cup.

At the end of this preliminary investigation, the PNF has several options.

The public prosecutor may first decide to prosecute her in the light of new information gathered during police custody.

He can also initiate a judicial investigation which leads to referral to an examining magistrate.

He can also put an end to the investigations.

The lawyers of the five men denounced this Wednesday the custody of their clients and the conditions in which they took place in a case which experienced its first developments in 2016. "A simple hearing without custody regime" would not have posed the slightest problem for a three-year-old affair, ”said Pierre Blazy, adviser to Serge Simon.

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2020-09-23

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