The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) has a long battle ahead before it can put an end to the Caster Semenya saga.
Conflicting reports from the Olympic committee and Mncedisi Ndlovu, a lawyer representing suspended Athletics South Africa boss Leonard Chuene, suggest that a large legal battle looms.
Sascoc board member Mubarak Mohamed told the Mail & Guardian Chuene had agreed to withdraw his application from the high court for an interdict to stop a disciplinary hearing into 16 charges listed in a forensic report, as well as the handling of the gender verification tests on Semenya.
“Chuene’s group has agreed to withdraw its court application in mutual agreement with our counsel. It will be given time to study the charges levelled against it and prepare its defence,” said Mohamed.
He said a new date for the hearing had been set, again by mutual agreement.
“We have agreed with Chuene’s legal team that the hearing will take place on October 8, not this week as was scheduled,” said Mohamed.
However, Chuene’s attorney, Ndlovu, said there was no consensus on the way forward between Sascoc and his client.
“There is no agreement. That is why we were in court in the first place. We have only removed our interdict application from the urgent court roll, not withdrawn it.”
He said Chuene would not be attending any hearing until the arbitration process that challenges his suspension was complete.
“The reason we want an interdict is because we are disputing that Sascoc had the authority to suspend our client,” said Ndlovu.
Chuene’s lawyers said he expected the court to begin ruling on the interdict only in the middle of next month.
Sascoc has vowed to go on with the disciplinary hearing even if Chuene does not attend himself.