Additional preliminary investigation to STT doping case to be completed by end of year

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The National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI, Finland’s central criminal police) further investigations into the STT doping case from the late 1990s will be completed by the end of the year.
      The NBI has finished hearing all the six people suspected of having committed crimes.
     
The suspects are MP and Olympic gold medallist Marjo Matikainen-Kallström, former cross-country skier Jari Räsänen, former head of cross-country skiing at the Finnish Ski Association (FSA) Pekka Vähäsöyrinki, former head coach and head of cross-country skiing Antti Leppävuori, and the former FSA managing directors Esa Klinga and Jari Piirainen.
      The titles of the suspected crimes are “aggravated fraud” and “false disclosure”.
      Furthermore, a former Finnish News Agency STT editor-in-chief and an STT journalist, plus the STT managing director in the capacity of a representative of the STT Oy corporation have also been heard in connection with the preliminary investigation. As witnesses the NBI has heard 15 people and as concerned parties another five individuals.
     
The preliminary investigation relates to an STT news item from 1998, according to which there were widespread doping activities within the Finnish Ski Association in the 1990s. The subsequent libel trials resulted in certain skiing directors receiving compensation. The police have now tried to find out if someone lied at those court proceedings.
      In the summer of 2008 the State Prosecutor Pekka Koponen requested the NBI for an additional investigation. The request was based on hearing evidence from the former head coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö.
      According to Koponen, there was reason to suspect that the former decision not to bring charges against certain individuals may have been based on insufficient information.
     
In the preliminary investigation phase of the STT case, Kyrö himself was suspected, for example, of false disclosure, aggravated fraud, and smuggling. In June 2004 the Vantaa District Court ordered Kyrö to pay fines for smuggling and, for the STT case’s part, attempted fraud.
      In September of this year, State Prosecutor Pekka Koponen transferred to the Supreme Court.
      In the ongoing case the role of the prosecutor has been assumed by Mikko Jaatinen from the Prosecutor's Office of Central Finland.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  In reopened doping-in-cross-country-skiing case, several individuals are suspected of aggravated fraud (20.3.2009)
  Matikainen-Kallström denies doping allegations in National Bureau of Investigation hearing (4.6.2009)

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