WADA invites independent prosecutor to review contamination case concerning Chinese swimmers

OTTAWA, April 25 (Xinhua) -- The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Thursday that it has invited an independent prosecutor to conduct a thorough review of its handling of the contamination case concerning Chinese swimmers.

In a statement, the agency said the decision was taken in light of the "damaging and baseless allegations" that are being leveled at the WADA.

According to the statement, the independent prosecutor, Eric Cottier with 39 years' experience was the Attorney General of the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland, from September 2005 until his retirement in December 2022.

He also had been a public prosecutor from 1984 to 1991, President of the 2nd District Court in Vevey and Lavaux from 1991 to 1998, and a cantonal court judge from 1999 until 2005.

He is currently a member of the Board of the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Prosecutor Extraordinary at the federal level in Switzerland, and a member of a working group at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), an independent, inter-governmental organization based in Rome.

"WADA's integrity and reputation is under attack. In the past few days, WADA has been unfairly accused of bias in favor of China by not appealing the CHINADA case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport," said WADA president Witold Banka. "We continue to reject the false accusations and we are pleased to be able to put these questions into the hands of an experienced, respected and independent prosecutor. I thank the members of WADA's Executive Committee for meeting at such short notice and for their support in this matter."

To facilitate his review, Cottier will be granted full and unfettered access to all of WADA's files and documents related to this matter and will be free to consult with any independent experts as he sees fit, so as to reach his conclusions, the statement said.

Cottier will start his work in the coming days and is expected to deliver his findings within two months. Upon completion of his report, the WADA Executive Committee will assess it and consider next steps, as appropriate, the statement said.

In addition to the independent prosecutor and entirely separate to his work, WADA will shortly send a compliance audit team to China in order to assess the current state of its anti-doping program as part of the agency's regular compliance monitoring program, the statement said.

For added reassurance, WADA will invite a number of independent auditors from the broader anti-doping community to join the audit team on that mission, the statement added.

A group of Chinese swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) in early 2021 after inadvertently being exposed to the substance through contamination. After WADA Science Department and external legal counsel reviewed this case thoroughly, it concluded "the athletes would be held to have no fault or negligence."