Di Luca's case shelved but CONI persists

Danilo Di Luca's legal woes have been quieted but the silence could only be temporary. Yesterday morning, the prosecutor of Pescara (Abruzzo, Italy) that had been investigating the winner of this year's Giro d'Italia for 2004's Oil for Drugs affair asked for the case against Di Luca to be shelved. However, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri persists with the investigation that links the 31 year-old Italian cyclist to Doctor Carlo Santuccione of Cepagatti.

Pescara investigating judge Maria Michela De Fine had already pursued the shelving on July 12, accepting the request from prosecutor Andrea Papalia. In the coming days the second shelving is likely to occur and, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, it is likely to happen soon as the Italian judicial system breaks for its August vacations.

CONI had indicated last week that it would send-back the likely double-shelving of the case against Di Luca based on Italy's wide-scope anti-doping law 376/2000. Torri will wait to hear Papalia's reasoning but it is speculated he will defer Di Luca to the Italian cycling federation's (FCI) disciplinary commission with a recommended suspension of three to six months for links to Doctor Santuccione, who in the past had been sanctioned for doping.

Di Luca's case had been heightened when documents supplied by Italy's Anti-Narcotics Group (NAS) were published in the Italian press. For more details on the Oil for Drugs, read NAS blitz nets nada and NAS raid Giro again from 2004.