In the ongoing saga regarding the Valverde doping case, today legal action was taken up with the Spanish courts against the Antidoping Prosecutor of the CONI (Italian Olympic Committee), Mr. Ettore Torri, for two possible offences, one of them being disobedience to the Spanish legal authorities and the other one being falsification of documents.
It is claimed that Mr. Torri is acting in a stubborn and consistent manner showing contempt of the Spanish legal authorities and is refusing to obey the Decree of the n?31 Court of Madrid, which prevents the CONI from using the evidences of the penal procedure against sportsmen.
This legal action is also directed to everone who has collaborated with Mr. Torri and aims to set a signal for the future regarding implication of disobeying Spanish legal authority and jurisdiction.
In a statement from Monday (4th May 2009) Alejandro Valverde’s defense was presented in front of the CONI, declaring the rider’s innocence and highlighting the irregularities made in these proceedings. In addition the defense argued that CONI has not real jurisdiction in this matter and the case should be dealt with by a qualified organisation such as (no surprise) the Royal Spanish Cycling Federation.
The Spanish cycling federation said Tuesday that it will attend Alejandro Valverde’s anti-doping hearing with Italian prosecutors next week on May 11. "We want to protect the fundamental right of athletes to participate in cycling events free of doping, guaranteeing the equity and equality in cycling" the federation said in a statement posted on its Web site.
The charges against Valverdestem from a postive DNA blood match from bags of blood linked to the the 2006 Operation Puerto case, when the 2008 tour de France entered Italy this gave CONI jurisdiction in the case.
