| | Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY -- Files at the Salt Lake Organizing
Committee yielded more evidence Wednesday of efforts Olympic bid
executives made to influence International Olympic Committee
members to award Salt Lake the 2002 Winter Games.
A consultant's notes, headlined "What is needed for" three
members of the International Olympic Committee, figure in the
bribery indictment of bid chief Tom Welch and deputy Dave Johnson.
The notes, obtained by The Associated Press, are evidence
federal prosecutors will use to argue Welch and Johnson tried to
identify which IOC members' votes could be bought.
They also suggest a favor Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt could do for an
exiled Tunisian prime minister. Leavitt's chief lawyer said
Wednesday he never received the request.
The consultant, Mahmoud Elfarnawani, scribbled a two-page memo
on hotel stationary during the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games, when
Salt Lake was furiously lobbying to win its own games.
Elfarnawani suggested Salt Lake bidders invite to the United
States sons or grandsons of IOC members Mohamed Zerguini of Algeria
and Bashir Attarabulsi of Libya.
Zerguini received a "serious warning" from the IOC last year
after a Salt Lake ethics panel reported the bid committee paid
$14,500 in cash to one of his grandsons, Raouf Scally, for no
apparent reason.
One of Attarabulsi's sons, Suhel, received $60,000 in expenses
and pocket money to attend two Utah schools, an English language
center at Brigham Young University and a community college.
Attarabulsi, who resigned in the wake of the scandal, received
free medical services in Utah on one visit and was accompanied by
family members on trips to Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Disneyland in
Anaheim, Calif. In all, his family cost the bid committee $91,000,
according to federal prosecutors.
Elfarnawani began his notes with a suggested favor for former
Tunisia Prime Minister Mohamed Mzali, also an IOC member: "a
letter from the governor" stating Leavitt is "deeply touched" by
Mzali's plight and admires his "courage & patience." Leavitt also
was to "voice his opinion to Washington."
Mzali, removed from power by a 1986 coup, remained an IOC member
for Tunisia and has not been implicated in the scandal.
"He had to walk across a desert to get out," Welch said
Wednesday. "He lives in Paris in exile, and I think there might
have been a problem getting his wife out of the country."
Mzali would have wanted Leavitt to lobby Washington because
Tunisia "was taken over by dictators," said Welch, who didn't
know if Leavitt took up the cause.
He did not, and Leavitt wasn't questioned on the subject by
federal agents during an interview last March, his lawyer Gary
Doxey said Wednesday through a spokeswomen.
"We have no record of hearing anything about this," Vicki
Varela said.
Elfarnawani, an Egyptian-born consultant who once boasted he
"assured" the Arab vote for Salt Lake, began working for Salt
Lake in late 1992 and was paid $148,260 until 1996.
He was interviewed by FBI and Justice Department investigators
in July 1999, said David M. Goodman, his Toronto lawyer. Goodman
was not certain if Elfarnawani, a Canadian citizen, would be called
as a trial witness, but said a heart condition usually keeps him
from traveling. Elfarnawani did not return two calls Wednesday at
his consulting business, Trade & Sports Canada Inc.
Elfarnawani was among several consultants hired by Welch and
Johnson to provide personal information on IOC members. The
indictment also mentions the so-called geld document, though not by
name, saying Welch and Johnson prepared their own list of IOC
members whose votes could be bought with "personal benefits."
Elfarnawani's list was characterized in the indictment as one
act of an alleged conspiracy to bribe the IOC. It says Welch and
Johnson hired a Canadian consultant to draw up a list of "specific
personal benefits" that members would accept in exchange for their
votes.
The charges also say Elfarnawani gave Salt Lake bidders a bank
account number for a son of Gen. Zein Gadir of Sudan, who was
expelled by the IOC for taking more than $20,000 in cash and
scholarships from Salt Lake.
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