The legal battle between Jan Ullrich and German anti-doping crusader Werner Franke continues, with the next court ruling expected on November 30. Franke is appealing an injunction which prohibits him from claiming that Ullrich paid 35,000 euro to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.
During Friday's hearing before the Landgericht in Hamburg, Franke testified that the head of the Spanish Guardia Civil told him that the 25,000 euro which Bonn prosecutors have traced from Ullrich to Fuentes was "the deposit for the year, the total sum was 120,000 euro. I have excellent witnesses for that," he said, according to the dpa agency.
Franke's attorney, Michael Lehner, said that he will call former Ullrich mentor Rudy Pevenage, confessed doper Jörg Jaksche, Fuentes customer Ivan Basso and the ex-Telekom soigneur Jef d'Hont – and possibly Fuentes himself – as witnesses. "A thorough hearing of the evidence on German soil could be very interesting and suspenseful," Lehner said.
Ullrich's attorney, Marcus Hotze, said that the case dealt only with one statement by Franke and that everything else is "not relevant for this hearing." When the judge asked whether Ullrich knew Fuentes and whether his blood was stored by the doctor, Hotze did not answer but simply shrugged his shoulders, the dpa reported. Ullrich was not in attendance.
