Lamine Diack, the former head of world athletics' governing body who was convicted of corruption last year, died at home in Senegal on Friday at the age of 88, his son told Reuters.
Diack led the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) from 1999 to 2015, during which he was later found guilty of running a clique that covered up Russian doping in return for millions of dollars in bribes.
A French court sentenced him to four years in prison in 2020, but he was never jailed. He remained under house arrest and was later released on bail.
"He died at home around 2 a.m. of a natural death," said his son, Massata Diack.
Diack's lawyers had previously said he was in poor health and would die if sent to jail.
Diack was found guilty of accepting Russian money to help Macky Sall’s campaign for President of Senegal in 2012 and has been accused of accepting bribes regarding the rewarding of the 2016 Olympics to Rio.
Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the former President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison after Brazilian law ruled he led a bribery scheme to secure the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
During the trial, former Rio de Janeiro governor Sérgio Cabral, accused Diack of organising the corruption scheme with Nuzman.
"Nuzman came to me and said, 'Sérgio, I want to tell you that the IAAF President, Lamine Diack, is a person that is open to undue advantages'," Cabral said.
"'He can secure five or six votes.
"'In exchange, he wants $1.5 million (£1.13 million/€1.33 million)'."
In 2011, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Ethics Committee found Diack and Issa Hayatou - who was FIFA vice-president from 1992 to 2017, Confederation of African Football President from 1988 to 2017, IOC member from 2001 to 2016 and Acting FIFA President following Sepp Blatter's resignation in October 2015 - guilty of receiving payments from a defunct firm in the 1990s.
Diack and Hayatou admitted to the Committee they were paid by International Sport and Leisure (ISL) in 1992 and 1993.
Diack, who was IAAF vice-president at the time, received three payments totalling $30,000 (£23,000/€27,000) and 30,000 French francs (£3,900/$5,200/€4,600) from ISL "in order to meet the costs caused by a fire at his house that started on March 13 1993," he told the IOC Ethics Committee.
In a statement in 2011, the IOC said: "Diack personally received cash payments from ISL at a time when the company was in negotiations with the IAAF to sign a marketing contract.
"Mr Lamine Diack placed himself in a conflict of interest situation."