Puerto closure appealed - again

One week after the judge in charge of the infamous Operación Puerto closed the proceedings, the Spanish prosecutors announced that they will submit an appeal to the Provincial Court to fight the dismissal, according to AS.com.

Judge Antonio Serrano previously dismissed the case in March of 2007 after deciding that no laws had been broken by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, whose clinic was raided in 2006 and found to contain documents, doping products and hundreds of bags of stored blood, presumably banked by athletes with the intent to re-infuse the blood as a performance benefit. Italian Ivan Basso confessed to having been the source of several of the stored donations.

Prosecutors successfully appealed to have the case re-opened under a law prohibiting activities which are harmful to public health, which would be a criminal offense under 2006 Spanish law. Serrano decided last week that this law was not broken.

New Spanish anti-doping laws have since been passed to make doping offenses into a criminal offense, but were not in effect at the time of the Puerto raid.