After seven years of investigation, an indictment has been issued by the French legal system in the sprawling "Qatargate" case, Le Monde has learned. It concerns the Polynesian section of the legal investigation opened in 2019 for "corruption, money laundering, receiving stolen goods and fraud" by the French Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) into the controversial awarding of the 2022 World Cup to host Qatar in 2010.

Le Monde has found that the investigating judges Serge Tournaire and Virginie Tilmont sent a letter on Monday, May 22, to Reynald Temarii, former Tahitian vice president of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and former head of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), indicating that he was under investigation for "passive private corruption."

Initially placed under assisted witness status in 2021, Temarii, 55, is suspected of having entered into a pact at the end of 2010 with Qatari billionaire Mohamed Bin Hammam, known as "MBH," then FIFA vice president and head of the Asian Football Confederation, "in return for support for Qatar's bid to host the 2022 World Cup." When contacted, Temarii's lawyer, Gilles Jourdainne, said that he "had taken note of the notice of indictment, but does not have, to date, the motivation to make a comment."

"It's a good thing to learn that the case is moving forward and that it will clarify questions that have been raised over time," said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, the lawyer for Anticor, the plaintiff in the case.

At the end of the preliminary investigation conducted between 2016 and 2019 by prosecutor Jean-Yves Lourgouilloux, the PNF suspected Bin Hammam, 74, of having attempted to "neutralize a vote in favor of Qatar's competitors" on December 2, 2010, by paying Temarii's defense costs, who had been suspended for "disloyalty" by FIFA's ethics committee a few weeks before the vote.

The PNF believed that MBH had encouraged Temarii, who was no longer eligible to vote, to appeal against his sanction, in order to "block the appointment of a new [OFC] representative" hostile to Qatar during the award vote.

MBH "covertly" paid a total of €305,440 for Temarii's legal fees, via two Qatari and Lebanese companies, in two installments in February and April 2011, into the Swiss account of JCB Consulting International, a company owned by Jean-Charles Brisard, a consultant specializing in economic intelligence and terrorist networks. Brisard, the ex-husband of Temarii's lawyer Géraldine Lesieur, acted as an intermediary for Bin Hammam in January 2011, estimating a budget of €365,000 for Temarii's defense costs.

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