Police search Uni Clinic in association with doping

By Susan Westemeyer

The German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, national police) searched the offices of two doctors at the University Clinic in Freiburg this morning, as well their homes. The doctors are being investigated for having used prohibited pharmaceuticals on cyclists for doping purposes and for having supplied the cyclists with the preparations, the BKA announced.

According to the Badische Zeitung, the two doctors are Lothar Heinrich and Andreas Schmid, the two former team doctors for Team Telekom/T-Mobile, who were suspended from the Clinic after their role in doping at the team in the 1990s was made public.

"We figured that the prosecutors would start an investigation and we are interested on the explanation," Clinic Spokesman Rudolf-Werner Dreier told the dpa agency.

There was no explanation as to why the unannounced searches were made at this time or as to whether it is associated with Patrik Sinkewitz's apparent testimony that blood doping occurred on the team during the 2006 Tour de France with the help of the team doctors.