A case was opened against the former head of the Anti-Doping Center, who spoke about mass doping of Russian athletes.

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the former director of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Anti-Doping Center Grigory Rodchenkov, who told the media about the massive doping of Russian athletes.

to According the department, the case was opened under Part 1 of Article 201 of the Criminal Code (abuse of power).

A case was opened against Rodchenkov after a pre-investigation check of his interviews, in which he spoke about violations of anti-doping rules in Russian sports, including those involving him. Investigators also checked information from the report of an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), according to which in December 2014, at the direction of Rodchenkov, doping samples were disposed of in violation of international standards.

According to investigators, three days before disposal, the agency sent a letter to Rodchenkov asking him to freeze these samples.

“He (Rodchenkov - MOH) confirmed receipt of the letter about the storage of biosamples, assuring that all samples are securely stored,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement. — Despite this, on December 12, 2014, Grigory Rodchenkov, trying to hide shortcomings and violations in his activities and, thereby, retain a leadership position and avoid possible early termination of powers, <...> gave an oral instructions to the head of the department of registration and accounting of biospecimens Kudryavtsev E.G. dispose of 1,437 biosamples stored at that time in the Federal State Unitary Enterprise ADC.”

The incident caused the Anti-Doping Center to be deprived of international accreditation.

Previously, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the leadership of the All-Russian Athletics Federation 2009-2013 under Article 201 of the Criminal Code.

WADA published a report on the destruction of doping samples by the Anti-Doping Center in November 2015.

The former head of the Rodchenkov Center, who left Russia, admitted in an interview with The New York Times in May of this year to altering the tests of Russian athletes. According to him, at least 15 athletes from Russia who won or became medalists at the Olympic Games in Sochi took doping.