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Mark Schmidt (centre) during the trial in Munich, September 2020
Photo:
PETER KNEFFEL / AFP
The convicted Erfurt sports physician Mark Schmidt is free again.
This was confirmed by the responsible public prosecutor's office in Munich I of the German Press Agency on request.
The Thüringer Allgemeine newspaper first reported on the doctor's dismissal.
Schmidt was sentenced to four years and ten months in prison in January 2021 for years of blood doping in athletes and dangerous bodily harm.
In addition, the court imposed a three-year ban on Mark Schmidt and a fine of 158,000 euros.
Schmidt had built up a doping network over the years
»The convict was paroled on May 16, 2022.
He is on probation for three years, after which the sentence can and will be waived if all conditions and instructions have been met and there are no new criminal offenses," said the public prosecutor.
Over the years, Schmidt had built up a doping network that athletes from different countries and sports used.
Sporting events such as the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Olympic Games, the 2018 Tour de France, the 2016 and 2018 Giro d'Italia, the 2017 Vuelta, the 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships and other various cycling tours and winter sports events were affected.
The procedure after raids as part of "Operation Aderlass" in Erfurt and during the Nordic World Ski Championships 2019 in Seefeld became public.
Schmidt has been in custody since then.
In the trial of Schmidt and four of his helpers, all five made confessions, some of them extensive.
In January 2021, the Munich II Regional Court then imposed a prison sentence on the doctor for violations of the Medicines Act, the unauthorized use of doping methods in sport and dangerous bodily harm.
The district court had found Schmidt guilty in 24 cases of the use of doping methods and in two cases of illegal marketing of medicinal products.
Since Schmidt has served two-thirds of the sentence, taking into account the pre-trial detention, he has now been released from the remaining prison time, as the public prosecutor announced.
ara/dpa
