Franke and Ullrich next court date set

By Susan Westemeyer

German anti-doping crusader Werner Franke has his next court date with Jan Ullrich on November 2, concerning an injunction which prohibits him from claiming that Ullrich paid Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes €35,000 a year for doping products. The court in Hamburg, Germany, has twice upheld its injunction, but Franke expects a different outcome this time.

Since the last court hearing, the German investigators have announced that they have uncovered payments from Ullrich's bank account in Switzerland to one of Fuentes' accounts. Franke claimed to have known that, and more, he said in an interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau.

"Because of the injunction, I can still not say what the Bonn investigators already have announced," he said. "In all, 4.5 litres of Ullrich's blood were stored by Fuentes. The Bundeskriminalamt [German federal police] have questioned me, and I could even tell them the name of the bank, where Ullrich's money went to. So now I expect the prosecutors to file charges against Ullrich of lying under oath."