LONDON (Guardian) Papa Massata Diack, the son of the former International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president, Lamine Diack, was apparently involved in a scheme to deliver "parcels" to influential members of the International Olympic Committee, according to leaked emails seen by the Guardian.

The former IAAF marketing consultant was last week banned for life by the independent IAAF ethics committee over corruption and cover-up allegations linked to Russian doping.

In December 2014, the Guardian revealed that Papa Massata Diack had appeared to request almost US$5 million (S$7.1 million) from Qatar at a time when Doha was bidding for the 2017 world athletics championships and the Olympic Games. Through the IAAF, Papa Massata Diack denied "ever acting in such a manner".

Another explosive e-mail seen by the Guardian now suggests that three years earlier he had a cryptic exchange with a Qatari business executive in which he made repeated reference to a "Special Adviser", who IAAF sources suggested was likely to be his father Lamine.

"As you know the Special Adviser went to Beijing especially to see his friends in the Exco and to make sure that all the verbal discussions he had with them and some through his consultants are fully guaranteed," he said in the e-mail.

The e-mail goes on to suggest that six individuals, referred to only by their initials but corresponding with six members of the IOC at the time, had requested "to have their parcels delivered through Special Adviser in Monaco".

"Our special adviser insisted that we do not compromise his credibility with his people and don't dragging him in the negative attitudes created in Beijing (sic)," it added.

Diack Snr was arrested by French police in November over allegations that he had accepted "more than €1 million" (S$1.6 million) in order to cover up positive drug tests, along with the former IAAF legal adviser Habib Cisse and Gabriel Dolle, the former head of the IAAF's anti-doping unit.

French prosecutors said that Diack Jnr, who is believed to be in Senegal, would also be arrested if he set foot in the country. The e-mail seen by the Guardian details the urgency of complying with the request, saying that one parcel was to be delivered personally by Papa Massata Diack in Lugano, Switzerland, and the rest by the Special Adviser.

It is apparently dated May 2008, when Qatar was in the midst of lobbying to host the 2016 Olympic Games . It was sent two months after an IAAF event in Beijing and shortly before a Super Grand Prix in Doha.

That was during a period when Qatar was in the early stages of bidding for a huge array of sports events as part of an attempt to vault on to the world stage.

In November 2007, it had been awarded the 2010 world indoor championships and in June 2009 Doha would be one of the last cities added to the calendar for the nascent Diamond League, the IAAF competition that began in 2010 .

In June 2008, a month after the email was sent, Doha was dropped from the list of contenders to host the 2016 Olympics at the shortlisting stage. Despite scoring more highly in the technical evaluation than the eventual winners Rio, Doha was dropped because it planned to hold the Games in October - much to the fury of bid leaders.

The e-mail goes on to discuss a meeting apparently between the Special Adviser and a high-ranking Qatari official in the Negresco - a famous upmarket hotel in Nice - and a framework agreed under a contract with Pamodzi, Papa Massata Diack's sports marketing company.

Papa Massata Diack apparently says the high-ranking Qatari official should be available to meet the Special Adviser in Monaco if he has any concerns or doubts. The e-mail appears to have been forwarded by Papa Massata Diack to another Qatari official more than two years later - perhaps as a reminder or a prompt.

The apparent link to the IOC could prove damaging for an organisation regularly depicted as having reformed itself in the wake of the 1998 Salt Lake City scandal , in which the team bidding for the 2002 Winter Olympics was found to have paid bribes and inducements to IOC members on an industrial scale.

An IOC spokesman defended its track record and pointed to its independent ethics commission. "The IOC has an independent ethics commission consisting of a majority of independent personalities coming from the highest levels of the juridical, political or business world. It has a track record of taking firm action based on evidence provided," said the spokesman.

"In the current IAAF case, the IOC took immediate action issuing a provisional suspension against the former IAAF President Lamine Diack immediately after the first evidence against him was provided to the IOC. Following this provisional suspension, the next day, Mr Lamine Diack resigned from his IOC Honorary Membership."

He added: "We would therefore ask you to provide any evidence of wrongdoing by named individuals to us so that it can be pursued. You will appreciate it is difficult to comment on allegations based on extracts from unseen e-mails.

"The IOC has consistently had a zero tolerance policy on issues threatening the integrity of sport. A number of measures have been put in place over the last decade and the Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms approved unanimously by the IOC in December 2014 adopted the latest internationally accepted standards of good governance."

The IAAF, understood to feel constrained by the ongoing French criminal investigation over what it can say in public, declined to comment. Papa Massata Diack did not respond to requests for comment.

The Qatar Athletics Federation said it could not comment on the content of the e-mails without seeing them but again reiterated that its ambitious bidding spree for world sporting events was above board.

"As you are aware, Qatar is very committed to sports, and to the role that sport can play in the development of our nation. The World Athletic Championships in 2019 is an example of this commitment. Our successful bid for that event was based upon a careful evaluation of our nation's ability to host such a prestigious tournament," said a spokesman.

He added: "When we bid to host the 2019 World Athletic Championships we promised that it would be an extraordinary event. We made a similar promise when we bid to host World Cup 2022 . We won both bids fair and square, and we look forward to welcoming athletes and spectators from around the world to a spectacular World Athletic Championships in 2019 and an amazing World Cup in 2022."

Until September 2015, Papa Massata Diack had a consultancy contract with the IAAF. Under the agreement, in force since 2007, he was given a mandate to search for potential commercial clients in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, UAE, Qatar, South Korea, Mexico and the Caribbean.

After also being accused by the French newspaper L'Equipe and the German broadcaster ARD of facilitating payments to cover up failed drug tests, Papa Massata Diack agreed to stand down from his role as an IAAF consultant. But in July, he went on the attack, accusing his critics of attempting to undermine him at a time when his father was planning to stand down as the IAAF president.

"Through the defamation of an African sports executive, who happens to be called Diack is not there an attempt to attack indirectly the President of the IAAF?" he wrote in a letter to his father, the IAAF Council and the media.

He added: "To those who criticise me for being President Lamine Diack's son, I will answer that indeed he is my father, a man for whom I have tremendous admiration for being one of the first African sports administrators to lead sport globally.

"He is my father, but during our professional relationship he has always treated me as he did with any other member of the IAAF team."

In an interview with the BBC in December 2015, Diack Jnr insisted he had not been involved in any scheme to extort money from athletes, as alleged.

"I deal with corporate sponsors, I deal with governments, I deal with municipal government, I deal with Olympic committees, I never dealt with any athlete or any agent, so I reject those allegations," he said.

He also rejected the suggestion that he had asked for money from Qatar in 2011.

"I have a very longstanding relationship with Qatar that dates to 1995, so I don't need to send an e-mail when I need something from Qatar," he told the BBC.

"I have all the right people's contacts and I can go straight to them. So I reject it totally." Diack Snr also defended his son in August at his final press conference as IAAF president before handing over to Sebastian Coe .

His successor, who was an IAAF vice-president for eight years beneath Diack, has been left to deal with a spiralling crisis in the sport. An independent report commissioned by Wada has revealed state-sponsored doping by Russia on an industrial scale .

The second part of the report, to be published this week, will deal with associated "corruption and bribery practices at the highest levels of international athletics".

Lawyers representing Papa Massata Diack, the former president of the Russian athletics federation and the ex-IAAF treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev, Dolle and Alexei Melnikov, the Russian former head coach for long-distance runners and walkers, in December faced an IAAF ethics committee in London, following an 18-month investigation led by Michael Beloff QC.

An investigation against a fifth person, believed to be Cisse, is ongoing.

Coe is limited on what he can say on the corruption allegations by the ongoing French criminal investigation but has vowed to reform the organisation.

"If you're saying to me that too much power sat in the hands of too few people and the walls were too high then yes, you're right," he told the BBC last month. He has described the allegations against Diack as "abhorrent" if proved.