The Prosecutor’s Office changes its criteria and files the Government’s complaint against the Anti-Doping Director

The Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office has filed the complaint that the Government imposed on the actions of the former director of the Spanish Commission for the Fight against Doping in Sports (CELAD) José Luis Terreros, according to sources familiar with the procedure. As this newspaper reported, it was the Government itself that reported Terreros to the State Attorney General’s Office after receiving an internal complaint for not processing the positive result of sprinter Patrick Chinedu, among other possible irregularities, such as the payment of anti-doping controls that later did not result. appropriate to sanction athletes. Less than a year ago, that same Prosecutor’s Office considered that opening a file on doped athletes was “a legal imperative” regardless of whether all formal requirements were met. At that time he did it to save Terreros in another case, as he did in at least two other complaints.

Since at least 2018, Spain has had a problem with anti-doping controls. The royal decree that regulated them stipulated, somewhat confusingly, that there must be two control agents always present. But with the company that carried out the anti-doping controls, the German PWC, there was often only one agent. There are many sports events, many amateur, and going with two multiplied the costs. CELAD knew this and the positive results it found that had been carried out with a single agent followed different paths: some progressed, others remained in a drawer, other athletes resorted… Those who were buried never came to light, protected by the law of data protection.

There were some amateur athletes who, after being sanctioned, reported the director of CELAD, José Luis Terreros, to the Prosecutor’s Office. They considered that he had transgressed by processing positive tests that, according to the sanctioned athletes, did not meet the legal requirements as they were carried out by a single agent.

In at least two cases, the Public Ministry supported Terreros. The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office concluded that Terreros was obliged to open those files. On November 23, in a writing to which eldiario.es has had access, he stated: “Regardless of whether the formal requirements for taking urine samples had been met, [el director de la CELAD] “He was obliged by legal imperative to initiate the disciplinary proceedings upon receiving communication from the laboratory about the alleged existence of doping substances.” And he added: “All of this, regardless of the number of control agents involved in taking samples.”

But shortly after, eldiario.es revealed the case of the athlete Patrick Chinedu, an international sprinter with Spain who tested positive in 2019, although he was never sanctioned. Anti-Doping justified that since the control had been carried out with a single agent, he was condemned to die and did not even open it.

The case ended up in the State Attorney General’s Office, but sent by the Government itself, when it saw that Terreros refused to resign over the scandal. Added to that was another complaint about the use of public funds, since there were doubts about payments to PWC. Why pay public money to controls that were not later used to sanction? The State Attorney General’s Office referred him to that of Madrid. And this one has filed it again.

Last January, the Government ended up dismissing Terreros and appointed Silvia Clazón, a doctor like Terreros who lasted only eight months. In September he left the position to take up a position in Moncloa. He has been replaced by Carlos Peralta, a doctor who was an Olympian in Rio 2016.