Dr Fuentes

[Magda Hassan]

Fuentes, 57, has given evidence he worked with scores of cyclists, but also with other sportsmen and women on an individual basis all of whom were given a secret code."It could be a cyclist in a cycling team, a footballer in a football team, an athlete, a boxer," he has said. But yesterday he went further, claiming: "I could identify all the samples. If you give me a list I could tell you who corresponds to each code on the packs."

But Judge Santamaria refused to press Fuentes directly, noting: "The request will not be made expressly."

The lawyer for the Italian doping authority CONI, Ignacio Martínez Arroyo, immediately asked the judge to request Fuentes to identify the list. The judge once again refused, but accepted the protestations from the lawyers in the room and briefly adjourned the trial for 10 minutes.

Arroyo said: "Fuentes himself proposes to give the names and the judge refuses to ask. This is incredible."

Cough cough, see, she is only protecting the patients' privacy.

Fuentes was asked directly which football clubs he had worked with. "I can't tell, I have received death threats," he said. "I was told that if I told certain things, my family and myself could have serious problems. I've been threatened three times and it's not going to happen a fourth time.

"There are sports against which you cannot go against, because they have access to very powerful legal means to defend themselves. And it could also cost the current chief of the sport his post."

I bet. But they wont go there will they?