Judge refuses to release blood bags to identify athletes
Eufemiano Fuentes was at the center of Operacion Puerto (Image credit: AFP Photo)
Eufemiano Fuentes has been given a one-year suspended prison sentence for damaging public health and banned from working as a doctor for four years at the end of the Operacion Puerto trial in Madrid.
Ignacio Labarta was also given a four-month suspended sentence, while Yolanda Fuentes, Vicente Belda and former ONCE team manager Manolo Saiz have all been acquitted.
Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria rejected requests from anti-doping authorities and international sports federations for permission to analyse the 211 blood bags from 35 different people to identify the athletes involved.
The verdict marks an end to Operacion Puerto than began in May 2006, when Spanish police raided Fuente's laboratory. However Fuentes, Labarta and the public prosecutor can appeal the sentences.
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