SYDNEY, Australia (AP) _ The Salt Lake City scandal continues to haunt the International Olympic Committee.

At Monday's opening session of their three-day general assembly, IOC members vented their anger at being portrayed as corrupt and threatened to sue Salt Lake organizers over a document suggesting they can be bribed.

Reflecting the angry mood of the rank-and-file, Italian delegate Franco Carraro complained of "all the damage that Salt Lake City has incurred on our movement."

"We were, in fact, the victims of this," he said. "I wonder if it isn't time for IOC members to condemn people who continue to call into question our personal dignity, who question our honesty.

"I think we have defended ourselves. Perhaps now it is time to attack. Perhaps we should see if we can do something legally to defend ourselves by attacking those who continue to call our dignity into question."

The debate centered on the so-called "geld" memo, a cryptic dossier listing personal habits, loyalties and family needs of IOC members. The document was compiled by officials of Salt Lake's winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games, at the center of the biggest scandal in Olympic history.

The word "geld," which means money in German, was written next to the names of several IOC members.

Although the document was released publicly four months ago, Monday's meeting marked the first time the whole IOC membership addressed it.

Keba Mbaye, chairman of the IOC ethics commission, said the dossier "lists the names of practically all IOC members and indicates how to obtain their votes and favor."

Mbaye, a former World Court judge from Senegal, said there were legal grounds to sue for libel _ either by IOC members individually or in a class-action suit.

"We all seem to have some sort of police record because people try to see what they can do with such a rap sheet," he said. "We think we should put an end to such a practice. We need to condemn it and see what sort of legal procedures we could initiate."

Mbaye expressed regret that the compilation of dossiers on IOC members had become commonplace by cities bidding for the Olympics.

"It's really very irritating and regretful that we should be treated as bribed and bribers and totally corrupted," he said.

IOC officials later downplayed the possibility of legal action, noting the committee is not sure who wrote the memos.

IOC vice president Dick Pound, a Canadian lawyer who led an internal inquiry into the Salt Lake scandal, said suing would be pointless.

"To try and sue someone whose identify you don't know ... about a list that talks about possible prospects of avenues of approach to certain IOC members _ good luck with that," he said. "Who are you going to sue for what?"

Pound acknowledged the IOC delegates' comments reflected a deep-seated feeling of bitterness.

"There's a lot of really honest people there who got painted by others as being collectively dishonest and disgraceful," he said. "They're really mad and will be for a long time, and I don't blame them."

Ten IOC members resigned or were expelled for receiving cash, lavish gifts, free travel and medical care and other favors from Salt Lake bidders.

The "geld" document was retrieved under a subpoena in the U.S. Justice Department's grand jury investigation of the scandal. The memo was found on the hard drive of the computer of Dave Johnson, the No. 2 official in the bid and former deputy of the organizing committee.

Johnson and former bid and organizing chief Tom Welch have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of paying $1 million to influence IOC members' votes.

Max Wheeler, Johnson's attorney, said he didn't want to comment on the members' allegations "because the judge is a little sensitive about comment on evidentiary matters." But he said he couldn't image a libel suit being based on a private document made public only after being subpoenaed.

Mitt Romney, the new president of the organizing committee, released the "geld" dossier in May at an IOC meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a day after the Justice Department said it wouldn't prosecute his organization.

IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch referred the 28-page memo to the organization's ethics commission. Mbaye said Monday the panel was still studying the document.

Samaranch said the document would be distributed to all members listed in the memo and to any others interested in seeing it.

Mbaye noted that Romney had written to Samaranch to apologize for the embarrassment caused by the document. But that did not appease the members.

"What happens to these people who engage in slurring?" said Julio Maglione, a delegate from Uruguay. "Those people are free to make totally inaccurate statements. We've got to put an end to this."

Last week, a Sydney newspaper published details of memos on IOC members compiled by officials of Stockholm's unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Olympics.

Among those cited was Jean-Claude Ganga, the African official expelled in the Salt Lake scandal for receiving more than dlrs 300,000 in favors. The Stockholm file says of Ganga: "Some call him scoundrelly, even kind of a Mafia person."

Swedish IOC member Gunilla Lindberg said the dossier came as a "complete surprise" to Sweden's national Olympic committee and noted that a police investigation had found no evidence of bribery.

(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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