ASADA dope case hinged on ?phantom? shipment
The Australian
April 04, 2015 12:00AM
The Australian Sports Anti-*Doping Authority relied on vague and possibly fabricated evidence about a ?phantom? delivery of peptides in its attempt to prove that a banned drug was used by Essendon footballers.
The claim came from a witness who had not mentioned the shipment in four previous interviews.
The AFL tribunal, which this week cleared 34 current and former Essendon players of doping allegations, expressed ?grave doubts? about the authenticity of documents relied on by ASADA to show a second batch of peptides containing the banned substance Thymosin Beta 4 was shipped to the Melbourne pharmacist at the centre of the doping scandal.
Throughout the entire first year of its investigation, ASADA?s case was that Essendon players were injected with Thymosin Beta 4 contained in a shipment of Chinese peptides received by pharmacist Nima Alavi on December 28, 2011.
ASADA?s case was heavily *reliant on information provided by drug importer Shane Charter and Mr Alavi, who under compulsion from ASADA provided documents and submitted to four interviews with investigators, in November and December 2013.
On April 14 last year, after ASADA?s investigations team had submitted its final report concluding that insufficient evidence had been gathered to prove the case against the Essendon players, investigator Aaron Walker was instructed by ASADA?s senior management to interview Mr Alavi a fifth time.
On this occasion, Mr Alavi told Mr Walker about a second shipment of peptides that had *arrived from China about six weeks after the first. The only *record of the shipment was a handwritten noted entered by Mr Alavi?s lab assistant in the pharmacy diary: ?Thymosin 1g.?
When pressed for details, Mr Alavi produced certificates of analysis and other documents he claimed to have discovered in a storage facility.
The certificates of analysis *secured by ASADA did not reveal the source of the peptides, when they were manufactured or who tested them. They also contained inaccurate molecular weights for the substances they purported to identify. The veracity of the documents was questioned by ASADA?s own expert witness, University of Sydney endocrinologist David Handelsman.
The tribunal, chaired by retired Victorian County Court judge David Jones, concluded the documents could not be trusted. ?The tribunal has grave doubts about the authenticity of the certificates and, in particular, the Thymosin certificate,? the tribunal found.
According to the tribunal?s reasoned judgment handed down this week: ?The ASADA CEO placed considerable reliance on the February certificates.?
Mr Alavi?s belated recollections about a second batch of Thymosin were slammed by the players? lawyers. ?It is submitted that, if anything, the evidence *relating to this delivery is more vague, more imprecise and more generally lacking in documentary corroboration than the first delivery. There is no evidence about its origin, no invoices, email exchanges, international money transfers or claims for reimbursement. It is put that it is a ?phantom? delivery which seemingly appears out of thin air.?
The tribunal was not satisfied that the second shipment *occurred; let alone that it contained Thymosin Beta 4. The tribunal was neither satisfied that the first shipment to Mr Alavi?s pharmacy contained Thymosin Beta 4 nor that the peptides were taken to Windy Hill by Essendon sports scientist Stephen Dank.
