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Puerto case may be reopened

by VeloNews.com

• January 17, 2009
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Eufemiano Fuentes remains at the center of the Puerto case.

Photo: Agence France Presse – file photo

After nearly three years of legal wrangling, Spanish prosecutors may be ready to reopen the Operación Puerto doping investigation, which a judge had put on hold last September, El Pais newspaper reported Saturday.

A provincial court in Madrid has ruled that there were indications of “an offence against public health” that merited renewed examination and had therefore called for the investigation to be re-activated, according to El Pais.

On September 29, examining magistrate Antonio Serrano ruled the investigation should be closed, having already done so initially in March 2007 on the grounds that Spain’s new anti-doping laws could not be applied retroactively to May 2006.

In the first instance, the prosecution appealed and the investigation was re-opened. The prosecutor’s office also appealed following the September decision.

Since the affair came to light, Spain has passed legislation earmarking jail terms for doping offenses on the grounds that it is a matter for safeguarding public health.

Eufemiano Fuentes, a Madrid gynecologist who served as team physician for the now-disbanded Kelme team, is alleged to have been the mastermind of a vast blood doping network, dubbed Operación Puerto in May 2006 following a police raid on his Madrid laboratory that uncovered doping products and 100 bags of blood .

Police raided several residences and uncovered hundreds of doses of anabolic steroids, blood products, a list of cyclists for whom they were apparently being prepared, as well as the machines to transfuse them.

While names of around 200 “clients” from the world of sport were reportedly found, only a few have been sanctioned.

Excluded from the ‘06 Tour.

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The scandal gained momentum on the eve of the 2006 Tour de France, when investigators released the names of several top riders, including former Tour winner Jan Ullrich, Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso, Spaniards Francisco Mancebo and Oscar Sevilla and American Tyler Hamilton. Ullrich, Sevilla, Basso and Mancebo were among those subsequently excluded from that year’s Tour. At the time, Hamilton was already under suspension for a doping offense committed during the 2004 Vuelta a España.

Ullrich was subsequently tied to the case when DNA tests showed that some of the seized blood was his. After resisting a DNA test, Basso admitted that he, too, had stored blood in Fuentes’ office. He was suspended for two years and returned to racing last fall.

Following his exclusion from the Tour, Mancebo announced plans to retire from professional cycling, a decision he later retracted. Mancebo then signed a deal with the UCI Continental team, Relax-Gam. Mancebo is now slated to join Hamilton and Sevilla at the American Continental team, Rock Racing, in 2009.

None of the three was ever charged in connection with the case, but UCI and World Anti-Doping Agency officials have been pressing for release of Puerto documents, hoping to pursue doping charges against riders named in Fuentes’ files.

Also named in the 2006 release of files was Astana’s Alberto Contador. Contador was subsequently cleared of charges and he’s since gone on to win the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta. Saturday’s announcement made no mention of individual riders under suspicion.

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