By Stephen Wilson
AP Sports Writer
Saturday, Sept. 9, 2000; 2:17 a.m. EDT

SYDNEY, Australia –– In a rebuff to the IOC, the Australian government will not reconsider its decision to bar two Asian Olympic officials linked to alleged criminal activity from entering the country for the Sydney Games.

"The paramount consideration is for safety and the security of the Australian community," Prime Minister John Howard said Friday. "It's quite consistent with the letter of the understanding concluded when Sydney won the bid a few years ago. That's the end of the matter."

Australian immigration officials cited "serious issues of character" in denying entry to the two officials, one accused of ties to organized crime in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan and the other with reputed links to criminal gangs in Hong Kong.

The International Olympic Committee said denying entry to the two men – Gafur Rakhimov of Uzbekistan and Carl Ching of Hong Kong – violated agreements on the entry of accredited personnel for the Olympics and sought an explanation from Howard.

"This is a matter of most serious concern for the Olympic Movement," IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said in a letter to Howard.

IOC director general Francois Carrard said Saturday (Friday night EDT) that the IOC was still awaiting a response.

"For us, it's an issue of political principle," he said.

IOC executive board member Jacques Rogge said there was "absolutely no dispute" with the Australian government.

"If they (the two officials) are not allowed, they are not allowed," he said. "We are not going to wage a war. We are not going to insist they be let in. If this is the government's decision, we want to know why."

Howard and Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said it was a matter for Australia and not the IOC.

"I don't know that the IOC has to make the sorts of inquiries that we would ordinarily make to deal with its affairs," Ruddock said.

Carrard said the Olympic Charter states that an identity and accreditation card serves as a visa for the games. He said the Australian government had previously given a "clear and unequivocal commitment" to honor the charter, and the provision was also part of the host city contract signed after Sydney was awarded the games in 1993.

"In general, you're supposed to let everyone in," IOC vice president Dick Pound said. "We had the games in the U.S. and they had to let in the Libyan shooting team. It's part of the deal."

Rakhimov is a senior executive of the International Amateur Boxing Association, vice president of the Uzbek Boxing Federation and vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia.

In a recent book that quotes FBI and Russian police files, Rakhimov is described as an organized crime boss in Uzbekistan.

Ching is president of the Asian Basketball Confederation and vice president of the international basketball federation.

Hong Kong media reports said Ching, 60, had been under police surveillance on suspicion of being linked with China's crime syndicates known as "triads."

The South China Morning Post said Ching had arrived in Sydney on a Cathay Pacific flight Friday and was sent home on the next flight.

In 1994, Ching was barred from attending an international basketball tournament in Canada for national security reasons, the Morning Post said.

A full chapter is devoted to Rakhimov in the book "The Great Olympic Swindle" by British author and journalist Andrew Jennings, a longtime IOC critic. The material was serialized in Australian newspapers.

Attempts to reach a representative of the Uzbek delegation at the athletes' village in Sydney were unsuccessful. An operator said he was instructed not to put through calls.

The Jennings book describes Rakhimov as a wealthy businessman and quotes from a story in Britain's Observer newspaper labeling him as "the Godfather of Tashkent ... a major figure in Uzbekistan's booming heroin trade."

The book says the FBI office in Miami opened a file on Rakhimov in 1995 under the heading "Russian Organized Crime/Racketeering" and listing him as a top figure of the new "Eastern Mafia."

The book also cites a dossier on Rakhimov in the Moscow office of the Chief Directorate for Fighting Economic Crime.

Rakhimov was also named as one of Uzbekistan's top three organized crime bosses by the Paris-based Geopolitical Drugs Watch in its 1997 report on world narcotics distribution.

Rakhimov visited IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1998 as part of the Uzbek Olympic delegation, according to the book.

Rakhimov, 49, is chairman of the board of the Uzbek-Swiss joint trade venture Vita. He is one of the most influential entrepreneurs in Uzbekistan and is a major sponsor of the boxing federation. Uzbek officials said he has no criminal record, except one case in his youth when he was charged with hooliganism.

The decision to bar Rakhimov was the second matter in two days involving an Olympic official from Uzbekistan. On Thursday, customs officers at the Sydney airport found vials they suspect to be human growth hormone – a banned drug – in the luggage of an Uzbek coach.