Trento prosecutor’s office reopens case on Pantani’s disqualification from the 1999 Giro

Rome – The Trento prosecutor’s office has reopened the investigation into the Marco Pantani case linked to the 1999 Giro d’Italia. According to what Ansa has learned, the new file, entrusted to the DDA prosecutor Patrizia Foiera, concerns the hypothesis, as also emerged from the hearings in the Anti-Mafia Commission, of an alleged clandestine betting ring linked to the Camorra which aimed to prevent the victory of the ‘pirate’ in the final classification. The first to speak about the affair was Renato Vallanzasca, heard yesterday as a person informed of the facts, in the prison of Bollate, by the same prosecutor from Trentino.

According to what Ansa has learned, the investigation was reopened by the DDA of the Trento prosecutor’s office led by Sandro Raimondi last year, also following the findings of the Anti-Mafia Commission according to which it was necessary to further investigate the “anomalies” linked to Pantani’s exclusion from the Giro d’Italia 25 years ago. According to Vallanzasca’s revelations, the stories and wiretaps of some Camorristi, the Campania organized crime would have intervened to prevent the ‘pirate’ from wearing the pink jersey to Milan. For this reason Pantani, who was dominating the pink race, would have been checked before the Madonna di Campiglio stage, when the results of the anti-doping tests on the blood taken from him early in the morning showed a hematocrit value of 52, over the permitted limit of 50. That test led to the disqualification of the champion from Romagna and that day, probably, his decline began.

The new investigations have also been launched by the lawyers of the pirate’s family, always convinced of the champion’s violent death and the ‘trap’ set with the anti-doping test, who have presented a substantial report. The investigation is a model 44 one, that is, without a criminal title and without suspects. The prosecutor has in any case already heard several people and will have to hear others to try to reconstruct the alleged clandestine betting ring. From what was learned yesterday morning, Vallanzasca, who is in precarious health conditions, would not have been able to answer the questions of the prosecutor Foiera.