“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
– Mark Twain
“Operation Puerto is dead! Long live Operation Puerto!”
– Anonymous
Spanish Judge Antonio Serrano put the criminal case known as Operation Puerto to rest on Monday, setting the case that’s dragged many names through the mud aside on a “technicality.” That being, there was no law in Spain at the time of the arrests that the accused had broken. Doping became a criminal offense in Spain only last month.
In other words, Judge Serrano threw the case out (“archived” according to a number of news reports) because the authorities can’t arrest someone and then create a law against the supposed crime for the sake of prosecuting the person arrested. According to Eurosport:
Judge Serrano said there was no proof that Fuentes’s practices of blood transfusion or the addition of other substances such as EPO constituted a serious danger to the health of the cyclists involved.
“The fact that the blood to be injected belonged to the person themselves minimised the risk,” he said. “The medications involved were not out of date nor had they deteriorated nor were they administered outside medical control.
“The conclusion is that the events cannot be considered to be criminal according to the law in operation at the time.”
Many have voiced their dissappointment with the outcome, among them British cyclist David Millar who said:
“It’s a shame the process has been handled so badly. If there was nothing concrete the judge shouldn’t have allowed [the case] to be opened,” Millar told sports daily Marca.
Indeed. It is a shame about how the case has been handled, especially for the innocent riders whose reputations have been sullied by the allegations and whose careers have been damaged or ruined. While some of the riders implicated may be guilty of doping, the whole affair could have been handled much differently in order to protect both the riders rights and the integrity of the whole process. In the future, when people look up Operation Puerto in the encyclopedia, they will no doubt find a cross-reference to “farce.”
Former pro Jesus Manzano already believes that is the case, but for different reasons:
“It’s a farce. No one can tell me that, for example, a growth hormone that increases the risk of cancer, isn’t a danger to the public health,” former rider Jesus Manzano told Spanish media.
The case against Dr. Fuentes and several others was being prosecuted on the grounds that what they were doing endangered the public health.
Manolo Saiz, the former directeur sportif of the defunct Liberty Seguros cycling team, who was questioned by the Spanish Civil Guard during the case said, “There has been a lot of collateral damage from this investigation.”
That would be an understatement.
The story is not yet over. Spanish authorities have the option to appeal Judge Serrano’s ruling, and may well do so. The judge, himself, noted that the evidence suggests that doping did occur with the assistance of Dr. Fuentes and others, and the UCI is trying to get their hands on the evidence in order to pursue anti-doping cases against all the riders implicated. If the UCI gets full access to the evidence collected by the Spanish Civil Guard during their investigations, they may well press ahead with anti-doping cases against those who have been implicated so far.
“UCI has always firmly said we want to take this story to the end,” International Cycling Union spokesman Enrico Carpani told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “That has been our position since the beginning. We confirm that position. We are ready and we want absolutely to continue our investigation.”
Pat McQuaid is certainly undeterred by the the latest developments, as noted in CyclingNews.
“The Spanish prosecutor has three days to appeal this decision by the court, and the indications are that he will appeal,” UCI President Pat McQuaid told news agency AFP. “We have to wait until that happens before taking any further action.”
“For us the investigation is still ongoing,” added McQuaid. “We are wondering whether there is more information that is relevant to the investigation, and which we haven’t seen yet. But what the UCI does next depends on whether the judge releases that information and whether it will be restricted or not.
“Our intentions are still to do the maximum we can to get access to the files and to use what is in them if we see evidence of doping infractions,” finished the Irishman.
So, while the criminal case against Dr. Fuentes may have flamed out, Operation Puerto may yet rise like a phoenix from the ashes — especially if Pat McQuaid and the UCI are able to get their way.
National cycling unions also still have the opportunity to prosecute a cyclist, independent of whether OP is closed or whether or not an appeal by e.g. UCI will succeed. For example, a case is pending with the German prosecution in Bonn, that investigates Jan Ullrich for “fraud to the disadvantage of T-Mobile”.
Good point, Pommi.
Without a DNA match from the blood bags to a specific rider, there is nothing in the OP paper trail that can be used in a legitimate and ethical way to indict any rider. Of course, I did modify that with “legitimate and ethical” didn’t I??