FIFA Ethics Committee member arrested for corruption
Fifa’s Ethics Committee member Sundra Rajoo has been arrested on corruption charges and will not be involved in any further Fifa activities.
Datuk Sundra Rajoo, a member of FIFA’s Ethics Committee, was arrested on Tuesday by anti-graft investigators in his native Malaysia after being placed in investigation on suspicion of corruption, the world’s football governing body announced on Wednesday. FIFA also confirmed that Rajoo had been suspended and that while the investigation is being carried out he will “not be involved in any further activities (with FIFA)”. No further details of the investigation or the accusations against the Malaysian official were given.
Diplomatic immunity
Rajoo was held overnight by the investigators; however, he was released after a court accepted his representatives’ arguments that he effectively has diplomatic immunity due to his high-profile legal roles. “My client has offered assurances that he will extend the full cooperation to Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) regarding the investigation,” his lawyer Cheow Wee said. His defense added that the MAAC wanted to hold him for seven days as they planned “to question him regarding a corruption allegation”
As well as his position on the FIFA’s Ethics Committee, Rajoo was the director of the Malaysia-based Asian International Arbitration Centre.
The Malaysian was appointed last year as one of the two deputy chairmen of the Ethics Committee’s adjudicatory chamber, which has slapped lifetime bans on several football executives, including FIFA’s former president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini.