Swiss prosecutors ditch Warner jet probe into Blatter

Meanwhile, Sepp Blatter's family disclosed the former FIFA president spent a week in an induced coma after having heart surgery in December.

Former FIFA President Joseph Blatter arrives at a hotel in Moscow, Russia, June 19, 2018
AP

Former FIFA President Joseph Blatter arrives at a hotel in Moscow, Russia, June 19, 2018

Swiss prosecutors have dropped an investigation into ailing former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, accused of defrauding world football's governing body by paying for a private jet used by the now-banned Jack Warner.

Prosecutors alleged Blatter paid the $365,000 (300,000 euro) bill for the jet that Warner, the Trinidadian who served as a FIFA vice-president during Blatter's 17-year reign, used in 2007.

Warner has since been banned from football and indicted by US prosecutors for charges related to corruption.

Swiss prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand abandoned the probe into Blatter this month, the Public Prosecutor's Office (MPC) said.

The MPC gave no reasons for the decision, which follows the dropping of an investigation into Blatter in May last year related to FIFA's awarding of TV rights to the Caribbean Football Union, then presided by Warner.

READ MORE: Swiss prosecutors investigate Blatter, Platini for fraud in widened probe

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Blatter spent week in an induced coma

Blatter, 84, has been seriously ill in hospital in recent weeks. He was placed in an artificial coma for a week but has now left intensive care, his daughter Corinne Blatter said in an interview with Swiss media group CH-Media to appear on Friday.

The 84-year-old Blatter, who also tested positive for COVID-19 late last year, was well enough only this week to be moved out of intensive care at the hospital in Switzerland.

“The doctors are satisfied with his condition. But there’s still a long way to go,” Corinne Blatter, said. "It was the hardest and saddest Christmas of my life.”

He is still the subject of three investigations, principally one focusing on the accusation that he made an undocumented payment of $2.26 million (2 million Swiss francs, 1.8 million euros) to then-UEFA president Michel Platini in 2011.

READ MORE: Swiss open fresh probe into ex-FIFA chief Sepp Blatter

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