Reports suggest Fuentes and Saiz will serve time in jail

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Controversial former ONCE team doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and former ONCE and Liberty Seguros team boss Manolo Saiz are staring down the barrel of two-year jail sentences following Operación Puerto.

Spanish agency EFE reports that Fuentes, his sister Yolanda, Saiz, another doctor named José Luis Merino Batres, along with former Comunidad Valenciana manager José Ignacio Labarta are all accused of crimes against public health.

EFE says that the penalties are only likely at this stage with the Spanish judicial investigation has not officially closed meantime; it is unclear when the actual trial will take place.

Earlier this week, Saiz claimed that he and everyone else involved in the Operación Puerto inquiry will be declared "innocent".

Speaking to Europa Press and Spanish national radio (RNE), Saiz said that he got involved in the Puerto case because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Guardia Civil made their initial arrests on 23 May 2006. He says he went to a hotel cafeteria that day to speak with doctors Fuentes and Batres to talk about the health and prospects of a blind girl.

Saiz also defended the reputation of Fuentes, who was also implicated in the more recent Galgo investigation. "I have said and I will always do so that he is a great psychologist," he said.