Gregory Rodchenkov Sentenced in Absentia

A Russian court yesterday determined that the whistle blower who revealed the doping violations by top Russian athletes will we arrested and tried if he ever returns to Russia. The case has been going on in the absentia of Gregory Rodchenkov for the past few weeks. However, details about the case and ruling were revealed by news agencies in Russia just yesterday. According to the Russian news outlets, the former sports director was accused of official power abuse which always has grave consequences in the country. According to Mr. Rodchenkov, the government was interfering with the world of sports. He was working with Anti-Doping Center of Moscow as the head. He revealed a state of the art scheme that had been orchestrated by the Russian government to interfere with urine samples. The samples in contention are the ones that were submitted by the Russian athletes for 2014 winter Olympics that were held in Sochi. At the moment, the man in question lives in the United States. He is under witness protection which makes it difficult to pinpoint his exact location. While speaking to the New York Times, Mr. Rodchenkov made some revelations that alerted the International Olympic Committee and World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate the allegations. Following investigations by these two bodies, some top athletes were banned from international sporting Olympics. For instance, some Russians didn’t attend the Olympics due to these accusations.

However, some of the Russian athletes were cleared on any wrongdoing. 95 Russian athletes were cleared by the World Anti-Doping Agency. While the Russians agreed that there were some shortcomings with the procedures involving anti-doping, they completely disagreed with the suggestions that the Russian government was involved in any way. They later blamed Mr. Rodchenkov. The arrest order provided by the Basmanny district court in Moscow has already been appealed by the defense team representing the defendant. According to one of the lawyers representing Mr. Rodchenkov known as Alexey Sklyarenko, he said that the Russian court was trying to exercise what he referred to as psychological pressure to his client. During the process, the lawyer questioned the purpose of any investigation. In his own words, the defense attorney said that investigation should be done to uncover the truth. Mr. Sklyarenko also said that an investigation would be done to ensure that the justice prevails. The defense attorney further emphasized that arresting his client will not lead to the uncovering of any truth.