IOC postpones final decision on Bob Hasan expulsion<\/p>\n
Reuters, Mexico City<\/p>\n
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided on Monday to
\npostpone a final decision until July on whether to exclude
\nIndonesia's Muhammad \"Bob\" Hasan from the organization.<\/p>\n
An IOC session opening on Wednesday was due to make a decision
\non Hasan who was suspended from the IOC last year after being
\nsentenced in Jakarta to six years jail for graft.<\/p>\n
But IOC director general Francois Carrard said a meeting of
\nthe IOC's ruling executive board decided to postpone a final vote
\nuntil the July session in Prague because a judicial review of the
\ncase was still being carried out in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"A person has the natural right for a full process and the
\nexecutive board decided to suspend the decision until Prague,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Hasan, a golfing partner of former Indonesian president
\nSoeharto, remains suspended from the IOC which he joined in 1994.<\/p>\n
It is rare for the IOC to throw out a member although 10 were
\nforced to leave the organization during the Salt Lake City
\ncorruption scandal in 1998 and 1999.<\/p>\n
The IOC is keen to clean up its image after the worst
\ncorruption scandal in its history when the 10 members broke rules
\non accepting gifts from Salt Lake when it was bidding to host
\nlast February's Games in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the head of modern pentathlon, one of the oldest
\nOlympic sports, said on Monday that the IOC would be voting
\nagainst its \"soul\" if it decided to throw the sport out of the
\nSummer Games this week.<\/p>\n
Speaking as International Olympic Committee (IOC) members
\nstarted to gather for a meeting where they could scrap three
\nsports from the Games for the first time since 1936, Klaus
\nSchormann said he had received a lot of support in his campaign
\nto save modern pentathlon, introduced into the Games in 1912.<\/p>\n
The sport's Olympic future is under threat together with
\nbaseball and softball as IOC president Jacques Rogge looks to
\nscale down the Games after decades of expansionism under his
\npredecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch.<\/p>\n
\"I have talked to more than 80 IOC members and they have been
\nvery supportive. They say the sport is the soul of the Olympic
\nmovement. It is part of our moment and they support that,\" the
\nInternational Modern Pentathlon Federation (UIPM) president said
\nin an interview.<\/p>\n
Since his election as president last year, Rogge, concerned
\nthat the Summer Olympics are getting too big and expensive to
\norganize, has pledged to try to cut the size of the Games. For
\nthe first time since 1936, an IOC session of all members opening
\non Wednesday will discuss proposals to chop sports from the
\nprogram.<\/p>\n
An IOC report published in August said baseball and softball
\nwere very popular in certain countries but said the popularity
\nwas not reflected throughout entire regions or continents. It
\nsaid there was a lack of global participation by nations and
\nathletes in modern pentathlon because it was expensive to
\npractice.<\/p>\n
Money is very much at the heart of these proposals since it
\ncosts host cities a great deal of money to build baseball and
\nsoftball stadiums which can be difficult to use for other sports
\nafterwards.<\/p>",
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