Bulgarian IOC member Slavkov suspended

Mr Ivan Slavkov, the Bulgarian International Olympic Committee member, was suspended today following allegations of corruption…

Mr Ivan Slavkov, the Bulgarian International Olympic Committee member, was suspended today following allegations of corruption in a television documentary broadcast this week.

Olympic president Mr Jacques Rogge told a news conference: "You see before you an angry man. To say I am disappointed...I am more than disappointed, I am an angry man.."

The IOC said the executive board had decided to "provisionally deprive Ivan Slavkov of all the rights, prerogatives and functions deriving from his membership of the IOC throughout the inquiry".

Mr Slavkov and Serbian sports agent Mr Goran Takach were shown in a one-hour programme broadcast in Britain by the BBC on Wednesday night discussing ways to secure votes for choosing the site of the 2012 Games with undercover journalists posing as business agents.

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Three others close to the Olympic movement and familiar with the bidding process also featured in the documentary.

Slavkov, also the president of Bulgaria's football union, vowed earlier this week to fight to clear his name and that of his country.

The 64-year-old Slavkov was accused in the 1998 Salt Lake City voting bribe scandal that shook the Olympic community but was later cleared.

The IOC investigation into the Salt Lake corruption scandal led to 10 IOC members resigning or being expelled in connection with bribery and to a tightening of the rules governing contact between IOC members and bidding cities.

It resulted in the ethics committee being set up.

Mr Slavkov has said he and Mr Takach had tried to pull a reverse-sting operation to catch what they thought were "corrupters" of the Games bidding process.

London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow are on the shortlist for the 2012 Games. The host city will be named in July 2005 after a vote by IOC members.

Mr Slavkov's suspension was a "provisional measure" Mr Rogge said, adding that the investigation into the allegations had already started. Mr Rogge would not speculate how long the inquiry would last.