Spanish refuse to turn over computers to Ullrich investigators

By Susan Westemeyer


at Cyclingnews.com (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/oct07/oct07news)



Spanish authorities have refused to turn over five computer hard drives to German investigators in the Jan Ullrich case, the German news magazine FOCUS has reported.


The hard drives were taken into custody during the Operación Puerto. A spokeswoman for investigating judge Antonio Serrano said, "There will be no hard drives for the German investigators." The laptops which were taken in Puerto were not a part of the Spanish investigation, which has now been closed, and therefore Serrano "cannot authorize their use in further investigations."


The German investigators want to .....



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I'm not sure why they are still pursuing Ullrich. He's finished in cycling. He's not coming back. Doesn't he also live in Switzerland now? What more can the Germans do to him?

They can force him to pay back Telecomm for fraud, though from what has come out since there is probably no way they could show the Tcomm brass were defrauded.

They can force him to pay back Telecomm for fraud, though from what has come out since there is probably no way they could show the Tcomm brass were defrauded.

That would a contractual issue, a civil matter, that would hardly be the interest of German authorites. Besides, if the owners of the Telekom team pursued that, they would open themselves up to paying back any profits they made because of the fraud.

Same reason they are going after Lance: to tarnish his record, jealous, money. There is a lot of publicity and advertising money to be made if they find him guilty -- at the expense of cycling in general. It might also push him to leak other names.

It's starting to become unfortunate that people are going after riders so hard. Due process is out the window and everyone is a suspect (even the clean ones). I hate to say it, but doping makes the sport more exciting. Remember stage 11 of the 2007 tour? 183km long, flat, windy, and suppose to be a boring day? Remember when Vino ordered Astana to tear the crap out of Moreau et al?

I'd be surprised if there was even one attack on that 183km "rest stage" given a clean race. Much less excitement.

I'm not advocating doping, but at least give the riders a fair chance. That, or cut the stage lengths in half to make the difference less noticeable. Doping doesn't go as far in a 120km race as it does in a 200km race. I wouldn't have to wake up at 6:30am and watch until 11am for the "abridged" version, either. Riders would take more risks to gain time if the race was shorter.

I bet they want it for more than just Jan. There are probably other people on those hard drives that are racing now.

That would a contractual issue, a civil matter, that would hardly be the interest of German authorites. Besides, if the owners of the Telekom team pursued that, they would open themselves up to paying back any profits they made because of the fraud.

IIRC, in Germany civil law is different than in the US. I don't believe the civil case against Ullrich was initiated by Telelom but by some 3rd party, which apparently is perfectly legal in Germany. The fact that they are trying to get the hard drives would seem to indicate the authorities are pursueing the case.

It sounds to me that the Germans are trying to use Ullrich's case to backdoor their way to bringing down the Spanish Federation. The popular theory is that the Spanish Federation let a bunch of its riders slip through the OP mess, where other countries took a much harder stand.

This seems to me like sour grapes because Germany took out their best chance at a TDF podium while Spain kept their implicated riders on the road.

Same reason they are going after Lance: to tarnish his record, jealous, money. There is a lot of publicity and advertising money to be made if they find him guilty -- at the expense of cycling in general. It might also push him to leak other names.


Advertising money to be made? What?!

The reason people are going after Lance/Jan is the reason why any other criminal lier/cheat/fraudsters are persued...because they did wrong...and they broke the law.

It is about time that people like you realised this and stopped this whole 'persecution complex' thing, excusing away the bare faced lieing, the cheating, the fraud...because that is what it is.

This seems to me like sour grapes because Germany took out their best chance at a TDF podium while Spain kept their implicated riders on the road.

I doubt the German prosecutors give a hoot about bringing down Spanish cycling but it appears that the Spanish do.

Fraud is a criminal matter. It is illegal to defraud someone in Germany, as it is in most countries.

The case in questioin is being pursued by the Bonn prosecutor's office. Bonn is the local jurisdiction to Telekom. IIRC, the original complaint was actually submitted by Telekom, who had made Ullie sign a dope-free declaration. Once he was implicated in OP, the logic was that he must have been doping, so he therefore must have lied in his declaration, which would be fraud.

JSR

edit: looking up the history on CN, I see that the original complaint was filed by Werner Franke, the anti-doping gadfly.