The head of RUSADA’s investigation department, Leonid Ivanov, told about the opposition he faced while investigating the mass doping case in Chuvashia.
On May 6, RUSADA, as a result of an investigation, disqualified four doctors for life in Chuvashia for prescribing a prohibited method for athletes – intravenous infusions of various drugs. The RUSADA Anti-Doping Disciplinary Commission decided to ban for life the doctors of the Republican Center for Medical Prevention, Therapeutic Exercise and Sports Medicine of the Chuvash Ministry of Health Yana Bakhtina, Irina Kirillova, Tatyana Kozhevnikova and Svetlana Lareva from from the date of the hearing, namely from June 29, 2021.
Additionally, as a result of this investigation, decisions were made to disqualify 12 athletes for two years, four athletes for 14 months and 25 athletes for one year. With respect to 23 other athletes, the use of a prohibited method was proven and an anti-doping rule violation was established, but it was decided that there was no guilt in their actions. Only in the cases of six athletes was the fact of the violation not proven – the anti-doping disciplinary commission saw in their actions the absence of anti-doping rule violations.
– In May, RUSADA disqualified four Chuvash doctors and a large group of athletes for life. The investigation lasted almost four years, there were, as far as I know, opposition on the ground. Is it true ?
– There was an opposition, who initiated it, I cannot say for sure. At first we worked with the Chuvashia drug control department, they helped us a lot. We received information, arrived, saw people coming out of the doctor’s office and clamping a vein with a cotton swab. Inside they found an athlete under a dropper, the volume of which exceeded all permissible standards. They started asking questions to the suit, the doctors showed a lack of understanding of what was going on. As if they did not attach importance to what they were doing, it was for them a current, a routine.
Only those they could gather evidence for were disqualified, although there were more suspects. Medical documents, information from athletes, a large number of drugs for intravenous administration with already signed names … Banks, each of 500 milliliters, occupied several sofas. Everything they found involved prohibited methods. The documents were handed over to the Cheboksary police, as the investigation clearly indicated Article 230.2 of the Criminal Code. Then strange things started to happen.
– What’s strange?
– At first, the competent authorities really wanted to understand. They called from the district attorney’s office, we met, I explained. Then the criminal case was suddenly dropped.
– On what basis?
– The head of the sports dispensary department said that she misinterpreted the provisions of the criminal code, anti-doping rules and that she was usually on vacation when the staff were introduced to them. Ignorance of the law exempts from responsibility, which of course it should not.
When everything got bogged down at the Republican level, we wrote to the General Prosecutor’s Office, the case was reopened, but then it was buried again. Then the Chuvashia prosecutor resigned, the president of the republic was replaced, they stopped hindering us, but the statute of limitations expired. A sad story, because the doctors deserved to be criminally responsible for having at least ruined the sports careers of seventy young people.
What else was the opposition?
– It came to light after the information reached the public space. It was a long process, we spent a lot of time in Chuvashia, interviewing at least 150 people. Everything dragged on for more than two years: for some, an evidence base was collected, for others not, someone confirmed their innocence. But a regional working group has been created under the leadership of a metropolitan sports lawyer specializing in the fight against doping. Most of this group’s report, which I read, was not an analysis of the situation with the aim of preventing it from happening again in the future, but attacks against RUSADA and attempts to prove that we were using illegal investigative methods. At the same time, I have not seen a single complaint to the prosecution or the police. Why, if we really broke something?
– What have you been accused of?
– In the fact, for example, that during the interview with the defendants they asked leading questions. Although we are not investigators and are not required to act under the Code of Criminal Procedure. We had much more complete answers to all the points of the accusation than to the points themselves. But the purpose of the task force, from what I understand, was to whitewash the local authorities by denigrating RUSADA.
Source : MatchTV
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