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East German swimming officials jailed
Posted: Wednesday December 22, 1999 10:26 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) -- The former boss of East Germany's swimming federation and two coaches were given suspended jail terms by a Berlin court on Wednesday for their participation in the communist state's systematic drug policy. Former German Swimming Sport Federation (DSSV) general secretary Egon Mueller, DSSV head coach Wolfgang Richter and women's coach Juergen Tanneberger were each sentenced to a suspended one-year jail term and fined 5,000 marks ($2,577). Doctors and coaches have been tried already but Mueller was the first top GDR official to go to court. The 73-year-old Mueller and the two coaches stood accused of causing bodily harm to female swimmers, some underaged, by giving them anabolic steroids between 1975 and 1989. Prosecutors said the swimmers, some of whom still suffered from gynecological disorders, were not informed that they were being given performance-enhancing drugs. Mueller was involved in 67 cases, Richter in 62 and Tanneberger in 48, prosecutors added. All three admitted the charges, lawyers said. Tanneberger was the only one of the defendants to express regret in court, saying he was sorry if he had harmed the swimmers. According to a recent study by historian Giselher Spitzer, some 10,000 East German athletes were given banned substances including steroids under a state-ordered program which started in 1968 and lasted until German unification in 1990. Several officials have admitted that the former East German government, seeing sporting success as a vehicle to promote communism, employed systematic doping. The first trial to put the system under the spotlight ended in December last year in Berlin. Two doctors and one coach involved in swimming were convicted and fined while the three other defendants had their cases dropped after they paid fines. About 500 doctors, coaches and officials from other sports, notably athletics, are under investigation and more trials will follow. Among those under investigation is East Germany's former top sports official, Manfred Ewald, who headed the powerful German Gymnastics and Sports Federation (DTSB).
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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