Retired athlete Elias Kiptum Maindi has been sentenced by a Nairobi court to 17 and a half years in jail for forgery and conspiracy to develop false doping allegations against Kenyan top athletes and sharing them with foreign media.

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Magistrate Njeri Thuku sentenced Kiptum after finding him guilty of 11 charges of forging information on doping relating to the country’s top athletes with an aim of tarnishing Kenya’s image in the athletics world.

Thuku also slapped Kiptum together with his co-accused person athlete coach Paul Kibet Simbolei with a one year sentence for the offence of conspiring to cause disrepute to the reputation of the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) by portraying them as being complicit in doping.

Magistrate Thuku jailed the duo after she found that they were part of an international conspiracy ring out to tarnish the country’s image that fabricated false doping information and ruined the reputation of Kenya’s top athletes including multiple world champion Vivian Cheruiyot, Hellen Obiri, Eunice Jepkoech Sum, Juan Pedro, Amos Kipruto, Daniel Simiu Ebenyo and Beatrice Chepkoech, in a bid to have them banned from participating in Olympics games.

Further, Kiptum, a father of four was found to have forged a letter addressed to athlete Joyce Chepkirui’s manager Gianni Demadonna informing him that Chepkurui had tested positive for Norandrosterone.