The International Olympic Committee says that Iraq's Olympic committee should be dissolved and replaced by a new group with no links to the torture and other abuses of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The IOC's ethics panel made three recommendations Wednesday, calling for the formal dissolution of the Iraqi committee, creation of a new Olympic committee, and provisions to ensure that no one involved in the abuses be part of the new group. IOC President Jacques Rogge said the proposals would be submitted to the body's executive board next week in Madrid, Spain.
The IOC investigated a complaint lodged by a London-based human rights group (Indict) that alleged widespread torture, beatings, harassment and corruption by Iraq's Olympic committee, which was headed by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday.
Among other things, the complaint said Uday once made a group of track and field athletes crawl on newly poured hot asphalt while they were beaten, and he ordered that some be thrown off a bridge. The committee's headquarters included a jail and torture chambers. Rogge said the ethics probe found "all the allegations were absolutely credible."
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.