• Laila Traby, bronze medalist in the 10,000 meters at the 2013 European Athletics Championship appeared with two other defendants this Monday in Marseille in a doping case.

  • A year in prison suspended and 5,000 euros in fines were required against the ex-athlete and a double price (two years, one of which is suspended and 10,000 euros in fines), for the other two defendants, alleged suppliers.

  • Judgment will be delivered on October 3.

“I thought it was vitamins…”, tried to explain Laila Traby, bronze medalist in the 10,000 meters at the 2013 European Athletics Championship in the jersey of the France team.

The famous theory of the knowledge of his own free will, according to the famous formula of Richard Virenque, did not make the prosecutor of the criminal court of Marseille laugh.

At the end of a day of hearing, the debates "will not have made much progress", he noted, the prosecutor requested a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 5,000 euros. against Laila Traby (now remarried Hamtou) and a double price (two years, one of which is suspended and 10,000 euros in fines) for the two other defendants, Salim Ghezielle and Charaf B. suspected of having supplied, transported , sold doping products.

Everything changed for them early in the morning of November 7, 2014, when the gendarmes and an inspector from the French Agency for the fight against doping tumbled, following an information, in an apartment of Font-Remeu, station of altitude of the Pyrenees popular with athletes for their preparation.

In the refrigerator and in the rooms: ampoules of EPO and growth hormones rub shoulders with syringes, masking products and diluent solutions necessary for injunctions.

The athlete then in his thirties tries, in front of the gendarmes, to escape his control by presenting a friend to the inspector in his place.

In police custody, toxicological analyzes revealed the consumption of doping products.

“Vitamin Advisor”

Salim Ghezielle and Charaf B., they are not at the chalet, but the investigators trace their tracks by exploiting Laila's phone.

"Erase the whole phone," replied Salim Ghezielle (whose ex-wife Bouchra Ghezielle was also convicted of doping in 2008), "his vitamin adviser" and ex-runner, when the gendarmes knocked on the door and that , panicked, Laila Hamtou sought help from the one with whom she discussed the protocols, without however the name of the products appearing clearly.

"That they exchanged information on the protocols is one thing, but proving the possession, import, offer and sale is another," pleaded Maître Philippe Jacquemin, counsel for Salim Ghezielle. which the court also accuses of forgery in writings,

namely false medical certificates of aptitude for the practice of sport in competition, which he recognizes.

During the searches, the investigators did not find any products at his home, unlike that of Charaf B., where EPO ampoules and growth hormones, which he says he brought back from Morocco, thinking that it was vitamins.

In this case also hangs the shadow of Jama Aden, a former Sudanese athlete, now Qatari and coach.

He and several of his riders have been convicted in doping cases and the latter was training Laila Hamtou at the material time.

During the hearings, the athlete did not hesitate to designate Salim Ghezielle as the person who had given him these products.

The former bronze medalist, now a 43-year-old beautician, mother of two children and pregnant with a third, had brief "sentimental relationships" at that time with the other two defendants.

Amorous revenge while covering Jama Aden?

This is essentially what Salim Ghezielle's lawyer expressed, for whom "everything is false" at Laila Hamtou.

It remains to be seen whether the fact that she was assisted by an interpreter throughout the hearing, speaking in Moroccan, when she has lived in France for fifteen years and an interview from 2014 where she speaks fluent French has been exhumed, will weigh in the balance of the court's decision.

“I don't want to hear any more about athletics since this affair which shocked me”.

“I [Salim] trusted him 100%,” regretted the one who was fired from the Martigues athletics club and had been suspended for three years after his positive test.

Judgment will be rendered on October 3.

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