Marco Pantani: Another murder investigation after the death of cycling star

Marco Pantani at the Tour de France

Photo:

© Reuters Photographer / Reuters / REUTERS

After the death of the former cycling star Marco Pantani in 2004, murder investigations have been launched again.

The Rimini Public Prosecutor's Office opened a relevant file, Fiorenzo Alessi, lawyer for the bereaved, told the Ansa news agency.

Previously, two public prosecutor's investigations had come to the conclusion that the 1998 Tour de France and Giro d'Italia winners did not die as a result of outside interference.

Pantani was found dead in a hotel room in Rimini on February 14, 2004.

According to the autopsy, the then 34-year-old died of a cocaine overdose.

But now there are new findings from the former dealer Pantanis.

According to Ansa, the dealer testified in a parliamentary hearing in early 2020: “Marco was killed.

I knew him five or six months before he died and he didn't look like someone who wanted to kill himself. "

The man said that Pantani was looking for the truth about the incidents in Madonna di Campiglio, where Pantani was excluded from the Giro d'Italia in 1999 because of a suspicious doping result.

Pantani always protested his innocence.

Investigations, however, clearly suggested doping abuse.

After the dealer's statements were passed on to the prosecutor, the prosecutor resumed investigating the murder against unknown persons.

It had already been determined in 2004 and 2016.

An investigating judge said at the time that the murder theory was pure fantasy.

The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the filing of the case.

sak / dpa