Alejandro Valverde has asked the anti-doping prosecutor of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) to send the evidence against him to the authorities in Spain, who his lawyers say are the only ones who have jurisdiction in this case, EFE reported Thursday.
His attorney Federico Cecconi sent a 21-page document to CONI Thursday morning to counter allegations that Valverde was involved in the blood doping clinic of Eufemiano Fuentes which was the center of the Operación Puerto investigation. One day prior to Valverde's deadline to respond to CONI, March 6, they requested the evidence be sent to the Spanish cycling federation (RFEC) and the court for sport.
Valverde was called to appear before the CONI in February, where he was also put under a criminal investigation for alleged DNA links between blood samples taken by the Italians during the 2008 Tour de France and those they obtained from the evidence in the Operación Puerto case.
The document argued that the CONI cannot prosecute its case because it has not specified "a time and place" where Valverde committed an offense, and cannot prove that he committed any crime on Italian soil. The lawyers also argued that he cannot be accused under the violation "of Article 2.2 of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code and part 2.11 of the Italian anti-doping rules," since those standards did not exist during the time Fuentes' clinic operated.
The CONI must now respond to the Spaniards' allegations and can either close the case or proceed with the charges and a sporting sanction, but there is no deadline set for an action.
