More details emerge of election day manoeuvre in Aigle
Following on from yesterday’s news that corporate investigators swooped on the UCI’s headquarters in Aigle minutes after Brian Cookson was elected UCI president last month, it has emerged that a laptop belonging to the former chief, Pat McQuaid, was seized in that operation.
Cookson told the Financial Times that the Kroll company had moved to lock down information which could aid the new regime plus others to determine how McQuaid and others within the UCI acted while in power.
“They had to secure the computers,” Cookson told the Financial Times. “They took all the back-up tapes and all the IT stuff. They were available to make sure that nothing was destroyed that shouldn’t be destroyed.”
Today Press Association Sport has confirmed that sources close to Cookson have said that McQuaid’s laptop was amongst the items seized.
The news agency stated that Cookson signed a form minutes after his election win on September 27th, emailing that document to the UCI staff in Aigle and giving authorisation for Kroll to enter the building and to seize IT equipment and documents.
McQuaid and previous president Verbruggen have been accused by some of shielding Lance Armstrong from detection, although both dispute this. McQuaid has also dismissed a dossier drawn up by two American investigators.
That has not yet been released. An alleged summary of the contents was leaked in September and included claims of unethical behaviour by the two former presidents plus the UCI in relation to Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador, unnamed teams, the Vrijman report and other matters.
Makarov and Plant refused demands to hand over the dossier to the UCI’s ethics commission, with both questioning its independence.
Cookson wants to determine if either did act in a way to facilitate doping or to turn a blind eye to it, and has been working with WADA to try to finalise the structure of that audit.
Details are expected shortly about how that investigation will be carried out, but it is apparent from the Kroll news that correspondence and documents belonging to McQuaid and others will be sifted through and scrutinised in the course of that enquiry.