Probe into claim that Blatter paid for Warner's jet is dropped

Lausanne (AFP) – Swiss prosecutors said Thursday they had 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-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.

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.

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