Defendant Piirainen: Maybe Kari-Pekka Kyrö’s motives will all be revealed in the rocking chair

Defence presents its final statements in STT doping trial

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Jari Piirainen, the head of tourism for the City of Kuopio and one of the four defendants in the dock on charges of aggravated fraud, appeared relieved when the STT doping trial finally ended.
      “Maybe it will all be revealed in the rocking chair”, reckoned the former Finnish Ski Association managing director when he was asked why Kari-Pekka Kyrö triggered a new trial against his former colleagues with his revelations.
     
In the reopened STT doping trial, three former directors of the FSA plus skier Jari Räsänen were charged with fraud, because the prosecutor felt that the men had claimed substantial damages for mental suffering on false grounds in earlier libel hearings.
      In the earlier trials (the case went to the Court of Appeal), the men claimed that they knew nothing about the use of doping within the FSA.
      The defendants denied all the allegations throughout the trial.
      Piirainen’s lawyer Juha Kolu pointed out that while acting as the head of cross-country skiing at the FSA in the 1990s, Piirainen did not take part in the coaching of the athletes. Instead he was responsible for the financial administration of the organisation and for finding sponsors.
      According to Kolu, the central criminal police confiscated a couple of hundred binders containing receipts, but no evidence of the use of forbidden substances were found. At the time Piirainen’s duties also included the approval of medicine procurements.
      The prosecutor considered the FSA’s immunological programme and the so-called pharmacological programme of the 1990s to be doping programmes.
      “Piirainen did not once take part in the meetings of the immunological programme. He only heard of the pharmacological programme for the first time in the police questioning”, Kolu emphasised.
     
The former head coach and cross-country skiing boss Pekka Vähäsöyrinki’s lawyer Jorma Ipatti said that his client did not lie in the STT libel trial.
      Vähäsöyrinki answered questions regarding the use of human growth hormone but he was not obligated to talk about EPO, even if he had known something about it. The 1998 STT news article dealt with growth hormone that had been stolen from a hospital in Sweden.
      Ari Korhonen, attorney to another former head coach and director of cross-country skiing Antti Leppävuori, said that his client was not even accused of having been involved in doping.
      “It is all guessing and hear-say that has not been substantiated.”
     
Former skier Jari Räsänen’s attorney Ilkka Laari, in turn, fretted that his client was stigmatised by the doping news for the rest of his life. In Laari’s view there is no evidence whatsoever of Räsänen’s alleged doping use.
      The court's verdict will be pronounced on June 30th.
      The prosecutor has called for suspended prison sentences for all four men.
     
     
As before, we include only links to the most recent articles in what has been a very long-running saga dating back to 1998.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Skier Jari Isometsä may face serious charges following doctor´s dramatic revelations (9.6.2011)
  STT doping case: Coaches knew of use of EPO (8.6.2011)
  Kyrö: Skier Janne Immonen also used EPO (7.6.2011)
  STT doping trial: Testimony of Kirvesniemi and Immonen could be investigated for possible perjury indictment (17.6.2011)
  STT doping trial: Physician tells court of buying EPO for skier Jari Isometsä (16.6.2011)

See also:
  Finland´s tangled doping web is a seedy 13-year-long skinflick (5.4.2011)

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