In reopened doping-in-cross-country-skiing case, several individuals are suspected of aggravated fraud

Case dates back to STT libel verdicts from 1999 and 2000

Jari Piirainen

Kari-Pekka Kyrö

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The National Bureau of Investigation (Finland’s central criminal police) continues to keep a low profile with regard to its reopened investigation into the old doping-in-cross-country-skiing case from the 1990s.
      On Thursday the NBI agreed to reveal that it has heard four suspects this week. In the investigation, crime titles “false disclosure” and “aggravated fraud” are being used.
      There are more suspects than just the four who have been questioned so far. The NBI announced that it would question other people as well, both suspects and witnesses.
     
According to the NBI, the ongoing investigation concentrates on events surrounding the use of banned substances in Finnish cross-country skiing from the mid-1980s onwards, and on how much various people knew about this.
      In the course of the winter, 11 witnesses have been heard. The police have even spoken with a couple of skiers, but refrained from revealing whether they were being treated as suspects or witnesses.
      One of the suspects is the Finnish Ski Association’s (FSA) present managing director Jari Piirainen, who acted as the head of cross-country skiing in the 1990s. On Tuesday he was questioned for 13 hours.
     
The new investigation into the case was launched after the former head of cross-country skiing Kari-Pekka Kyrö revealed last summer that blood doping in all of its forms was used from the 1990s until 2001.
      Piirainen has been referred to as the “captain of the doping campaign”. Piirainen has denied having lied in any of the previous trials.
     
The NBI did not name any of the other suspects, but revealed that the four suspects were interrogated simultaneously in various parts of the country.
      Of the 1990s FSA staff that Kyrö has publicly named is the former head of cross-country skiing Pekka Vähäsöyrinki, who - according to Kyrö - brought him doping substances for safe-keeping after the news agency STT published its doping news in January 1998.
      The STT story, which is at the very heart of this current investigation, led to a trial and sentences for libel against the then STT editor-in-chief and a journalist, as well as substantial damages to be paid to five injured parties, which were sharply reduced on appeal.
      The upholding of the libel charges was put into a difficult light already in 2001, when six Finnish skiers were found guilty of doping offences at the Lahti Nordic Skiing World Championships.
     
In a January interview  with Kuukausiliite, the monthly supplement of Helsingin Sanomat, Kyrö also named the former head of cross-country skiing Antti Leppävuori, and the former managing director Esa Klinga as members of the “core group”.
      Last autumn the Prosecutor General’s office requested the NBI to find out if the previous decisions not to bring charges against Vähäsöyrinki and Leppävuori were perhaps based on insufficient data.
      The State Prosecutor made the decisions towards the end of 2003. The following year Kyrö was himself convicted by a district court for an attempted fraud that related to the STT case, as well as for the smuggling of doping agents.
     
The NBI has now questioned Kyrö on three separate occasions. To get further clarification to Kyrö’s accounts, witnesses have been heard.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police scrutiny over old doping-in-cross-country-skiing allegations to continue once again (12.12.2008)
  Former ski coach Kyrö reported to be source in TV news story on doping (21.5.2008)
  Finnish Ski Association on doping claims: skiers were offered baking powder (2.5.2008)
  TV channel Nelonen: Finnish Ski Association covered up widespread doping in 1990s (23.4.2008)
  Police will hear Kari-Pekka Kyrö in November (14.10.2008)
  Kyrö: skier Jari Isometsä was promised FIM 1 million to take fall for 2001 doping bust (13.10.2008)
  Kyrö interview casts doubt on 1998 doping libel case (22.5.2008)
  Sports doping case: Skiing Federation doctors suspected use of EPO hormone (17.6.2004)

See also:
  Appeals Court reduces sentences in STT doping libel case (31.10.2000)

Helsingin Sanomat