Charter Meets Bombers And Comments On ASADA

by Lisa Albergo reporting for AFANA from Chicago

As ASADA was going to court in an effort to coerce Shane Charter and Nima Alavi to appear at the Anti-Doping Tribunal, reports broke that ASADA had considered offering Charter a job and possibly recommending him for a position with an NRL anti-doping campaign. Other ideas discussed internally were to recruit Charter to educate athletes on the dangers of doping or as an informant. However, nothing came of these ideas after ASADA checked with authorities as Charter is still facing multiple drug trafficking charges. It is believed the offers were considered in an effort to convince Charter to testify at the Tribunal.

Another report surfaced that Charter had met with Essendon attorney Tony Hargreaves and club CEO Xavier Campbell in early November. Charter, who likened ASADA's case against Essendon as a street brawl between two strangers with whom he had no intention of getting involved, declared he was neither a witness for ASADA nor for the Bombers but saw no reason why he should not help the players. He said the meeting was simply to clarify some issues, including a chronology of the peptides which were ordered. According to Charter, ASADA's case has "a number of flaws". The result of that meeting and a follow up phone call just days before the hearing began is a 50 page transcript for the defense.

In a recent interview Charter also claimed that he believes ASADA tried to manipulate his evidence and that the players are being treated unfairly. Although he refuses to sign an affidavit or testify, there are recordings of interviews between investigators and Charter and Alavi which detail their involvement with the Essendon saga. ASADA does have what Charter says is an "incomplete draft" document which remains incomplete due to what Charter said were family commitments and the fact that he had no time to continue meeting with ASADA. He claimed that ASADA "deliberately left out parts ... because it did not suit their case. " "They had a particular agenda ...They wanted to amend things, change things, remove things ", said Charter. He also said new evidence he found in one of his old China offices, not included in the draft document, may be able to show that Dank ordered a non-banned form of Thymosin, not the banned beta-4.

Source: news.com.au, afl.com.au, sen.com.au