Francisco Antonio González, member of Spanish parliament for the conservative "Partido Popular" critisized the
handling of Operacion Puerto in the Spanish parliament yesterday. "Because of the desperate hurry of the authorities these
athletes (the 58 riders who are allegedly linked to the Puerto scandal, Cyclingheroes) didn't have a chance to
defend themselves. We'll have to see now how we can re-establish their honour and right to work."
One of the allegedly involved cyclists, Jan Ullrich was according to Austrian lawyer Herwig Hasslacher a victim of first-rate prejudgement.
Talking to Cyclingheroes, Jan Ullrich's press officer Michael Lang stated: "Jan is in good spirits again after
the media cross fire has somewhat ceased in the last two weeks. Some media rectified a few things concerning Puerto.
We do have a plan and we are on schedule so Jan feels much better now."
Continues Lang: "Jan wants to race again and he is still one of the best riders of the world. There are several teams
who are interested in signing Jan. At the moment there are talks with various teams. I don't want to say more
about it until we have signed with a team or things are ripe for a decision." Concludes Lang: "We
are convinced that we will be able to meet the deadline for obtaining a new professional license for Jan."
"I have no news about the ongoing investigations," Bonn state prosecutor Monika Nostadt-Ziegenberg commented on
the state of affairs in the investigation against Jan Ullrich in Germany "In about two weeks we will release intermediate
results."
The investigation of the state prosecution of Bonn started after professor Britta Bannenberg had accused Ullrich,
as well as his advisor Rudy Pevenage and cyclist Oscar Sevilla of swindeling the T-Mobile team therefore breaching their contracts.
A representative of the state prosecution of Hamburg, supposedly investigating after German professor Werner
Franke accused Ullrich of lying in a sworn affidavit, told Cyclingheroes that they can not comment at the case at
the moment as they are "waiting for the results of the investigation" in Bonn.
One of the problems for the state prosecutions of Bonn and Hamburg and also the Swiss Olympic Committee (Swiss Olympic
is determined to open a case against Ullrich altough the Madrid court made it very clear that they are not allowed to use court
documents for disciplinary action against riders) could be that there are more and more questions about the Puerto documents.
According to German based website sport1.de one of Ullrichs lawyers Dr. Ulrich Theune wrote a letter to Bernhard Welten, responsible
for the Ullrich case at the Swiss Olympic Committee, on October 30 in which Theune pointed out irregularities in the
Puerto documents (
Cyclingheroes reported about the possible falsification of the Puerto documents).
The draft version of the Puerto report which led to the suspension of Ullrich and the other riders involved could
have possibly been transmitted illegally to Rafael Branco, president of the Spanish sports federation (CSD). Blanco had
passed this document on to the Spanish cycling federation (RFEC) and the UCI as Carlos Bueren, lawyer of former Liberty
Seguros manager Manolo Saiz has claimed several times that in this draft version some paragraphs are supressed and a
part of the report does not bear the signature of the Madrid court. Guardia Cvil lieutenant Enrique Gomez, who started the
Puerto investigation, will be heard about possible falsification of the documents at a court hearing on November 29.
Right from the start of the whole affair Ullrich has claimed that he is being innocent.
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