Disgraced former IAAF chief Lamine Diack will stand trial in France on charges of corruption and money laundering, a judicial source said, after a four-year investigation into doping cover-ups, extortion and bribe-taking in world athletics.

The judges' decision came a month after financial prosecutors formally accused Diack and his son Papa Massata Diack of a host of illicit practices over a period of years with the active involvement of international athletes and their federations.

Money laundering alone carries a jail term of up to 10 years.

'Father and son'

Diack and his son have consistently denied wrongdoing.

Papa Massata Diack, a former marketing consultant to the world athletics' ruling body the IAAF, has refused to cooperate with the investigation and has never been questioned by French officials.

According to a BBC report, Diack senior has been under house arrest since November 2015 and his son fled to their native Senegal.

In 2017, Papa Massata Diack branded the corruption allegations against him as "a witch hunt" and accused France of having "taken hostage" his father.

He is one of the five others who will face trial on the same charges along with Balakhnichev, Russia's former national middle distance coach Alexei Melnikov, Lamine Diack's former advisor Habib Cisse, and the IAAF's former anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle.

Why is Diack charged in France?

French prosecutors took up the case because they suspect money was laundered in France.

The French investigation into Diack began in 2015 when Britain's Sebastian Coe took over from the 86-year-old Senegalese as IAAF president.

The backdrop to the investigation is the system of state-sponsored doping uncovered in Russia by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Prosecutors allege that Diack was prepared to accept funding for political campaigns in Senegal in return for IAAF anti-doping officials turning a blind eye to Russian athletes caught doping.

"Under the leadership of its president and after many years of mishandling, the IAAF brought together corruption and incitement to carry out doping," they said in a summary of their case last month.

The prosecutors in their indictment highlighted what they describe as the "extremely complacent" attitude of the IAAF towards the Russian athletics federation. They set out the relations between a number of IAAF and national federation officials allegedly involved in corrupt practices.

Corruption and doping cover-ups

In 2005, the IAAF's ethics commission and the WADA uncovered evidence a Russian marathon runner paid 600,000 euros (684,000 U.S. dollars) to cover up a positive drug test, allowing her to compete in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

According to the prosecutors, Diack and his son, who oversaw a sports consulting business called Black Tidings, solicited payments from athletes, either directly or indirectly, totaling 3.45 million euros (3.9 million U.S. dollars) in exchange for covering up positive doping tests and allowing athletes to go on competing.

One doping case involving Russian athletes that prosecutors have scrutinized is that of marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova, who won the Chicago marathon three times but was later banned for using the endurance-boosting drug EPO.

Shobukhova admitted paying 450,000 euros (513,000 U.S. dollars) to avoid sanctions. When she was suspended in 2014, she blew the whistle on corruption between Russian athletics and IAAF figures, including Papa Massata Diack.

The IAAF suspended Russia in November 2015 after the allegations of state involvement in doping emerged.

Russian track and field athletes were banned from competing under their own flag at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Russia was re-admitted to the Olympic fold last year but the IAAF continues to ban Russian athletes from competing in their national colors.

(With input from AFP and Reuters)