GENEVA — A special ethics investigator met Thursday with an IOC member from the Ivory Coast jailed in an assassination attempt to try to determine if he should be expelled from the Olympic committee.
Francois Werner, special representative to the IOC ethics commission, also said that Australian member Kevan Gosper would face an inquiry for publicly endorsing Dick Pound of Canada for the International Olympic Committee presidency.
"My understanding is that it is obviously against the rules. Who could say anything else?" said Werner.
Werner said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he had met Gen. Lassana Palenfo, the No. 2 official in the Ivory Coast's former junta government. Werner refused to give details of his meeting but said his investigation was finished.
The IOC will decide Palenfo's status July 12 during its general assembly in Moscow, he said.
In March, Palenfo and Brig. Gen. Abdoulaye Coulibaly were sentenced by a military court to a year in prison for their part in an alleged assassination attempt on junta leader Gen. Robert Guei last September.
The two spent several weeks hiding in the Nigerian Embassy in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, returning to their homes in October after Guei was ousted in a popular uprising that brought opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo to the presidency.
Palenfo was appointed to the IOC in September 2000. Under the Olympic Charter, an IOC member can be expelled if he or she "neglected or knowingly jeopardized the interests of the IOC or has acted in a way which is unworthy of the IOC."
The ethics panel was created in 1999 in the wake of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal in which 10 IOC members were ousted for receiving improper inducements.
Gosper told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that he and Pound had made a reciprocal agreement to support each other should either of them stand for election to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch.
"I do favor Pound," he said.
IOC members are prohibited from stating publicly how they intend to vote in the election, which will be held by secret ballot in Moscow on July 16.
Werner said Samaranch would contact Gosper — Australia's most senior Olympic official — to ask him if he had really said what was reported.
After that, the issue would be passed to members of the ethics commission for their opinions. The panel would then make a recommendation to the IOC executive board on what action to take.
Werner said "the whole range of sanctions" was open. Members will communicate by fax or e-mail and will not have to hold a special meeting.
Werner said the rule banning members from revealing voting intentions had been made "in order to have a quiet campaign."
It will be the second time that Gosper has been investigated by the ethics commission.
Last year, after a long inquiry, he was cleared of charges that he and his family accepted excessive hospitality from the Salt Lake City bid organizers.