Sandro Donati acquitted: no defamation in the book on Schwazer, “legitimate exercise of the right to criticize”

Sandro Donati, historic champion of the fight against doping, former coach of Alex Schwazer, did not defame Giuseppe Fischetto, Fidal doctor and leading figure in the anti-doping commission of the then Iaaf, the current World Athletics (world athletics federation). The proceedings, which ended in court in Trento, arose following the publication of the book written by Donati, ‘The Lords of Doping. The corrupt sports system against Alex Schwazer’. Fischetto, for many years head of the Fidal medical structure, had considered some sentences reported by the Roman coach offensive. After the public prosecutor’s request to dismiss the proceedings in August 2022, the former head of the emergency room in Frascati opposed it. Subsequently, the investigating judge only partially accepted the request for dismissal made by the prosecutor and arranged for Donati to be charged for the crime of defamation in relation to three points in the book. The first was the publication of an email between Fischetto and the then director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory a few months before the London 2012 Olympics; the second the comparison of Dr. Fischetto «to a corrupt sports system”; the third the comparison of Fischetto to the hypothesis, considered unfounded by the latter, of the manipulation of Schwazer’s biological samples after the check in January 2016 which led to the 8-year disqualification. For Donati, after the abbreviated procedure, the acquittal arrived because the fact does not constitute a crime, or because the contents of the book «in as a whole presents itself as a legitimate exercise of the right of literary criticism”.