AFP

The former head of global athletics, Lamine Diack, was on Wednesday found guilty by a French court of corruption in covering up Russian doping cases and sentenced to four years in prison, of which two years were suspended.

Diack, an 87-year-old Senegalese, who led the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), now renamed World Athletics, from 1999 to 2015, was also fined 500,000 euros ($600,000).

The presiding judge in the court in Paris, Rose-Marie Hunault, said Diack was unlikely to go to jail.

"Given your age, you can expect a conditional release," she said.

Diack said he would immediately lodge an appeal. His son, Papa Massata Diack, a former marketing consultant for the IAAF, who was tried in absentia because Senegal refuses to extradite him, was sentenced to five years in prison and fined one million euros.

The prosecution alleged that Diack obtained $1.5 million of Russian funds in exchange for the IAAF's anti-doping arm covering up or delaying offences by 23 Russians to allow them to compete in the 2012 London Olympics and the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow.