PARIS: A French magistrate has placed the former head of the Monaco-based international athletics federation under formal investigation as part of a corruption inquiry, a source in the French judiciary said on Wednesday.

The source said the magistrate had placed Lamine Diack, the Senegal-born former head of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), officially under investigation along with another person who acted as his judicial adviser.

The source was speaking on condition of anonymity as is customary in France in judicial inquiries of the kind.

According to French news channel iTELE, the investigation is focused on suspicion that payments were made in return for not revealing doping of Russian athletes.

Diack, a former long jumper who was born in 1933, headed the athletics body for the best part of a decade from 1999.