January 21, 2006 – A top health ministry official threatened on Friday to send police to conduct drug tests on athletes during next month’s Turin Olympics, amid a worsening row over how to apply Italy’s anti-doping law at the games.

The Italian health ministry insists that the law, which calls for criminal penalties for sports doping, allows it to administer tests at all sports events, despite previous statements by government and Olympic officials that the International Olympic Committee would oversee testing during the Feb. 10-26 games.

”We intend to follow the law,” Health Undersecretary Cesare Cursi said, adding, ”And if there isn’t an understanding, we’ll send the Carabinieri (paramilitary police) to conduct tests.”

The long-contended issue seemed resolved last month when the games government supervisor, Mario Pescante, arranged a solution keeping the law in place but putting the IOC in charge of testing. Under the deal, the procedures would be delegated to Turin organizers and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

But a decree quietly issued by the ministry last week gives its anti-doping commission responsibility for testing at all national and international competitions in Italy.

Cursi said that IOC and WADA rules on doping are ”codes of conduct” and that the ministry wanted to conduct its own tests at the Olympics to ensure that the law was respected.

”Who is WADA? Who recognizes it at a national level? We are an institution taking steps to enforce the law, codes of conduct are another thing,” he said.

Calls to Pescante’s office and to his spokesman’s cell phone went unanswered Friday evening.

Under IOC rules, athletes can be disqualified and stripped of their medals but face no criminal liability.

During a meeting of the government’s anti-doping commission Friday, some members ”expressed perplexity” at the decree, Cursi said. ”But it’s not up to them to evaluate a political decision.”

The issue also came up during Friday’s cabinet meeting, with the government deciding to create a technical panel including the health ministry and the culture ministry, which includes sports, as well as officials from the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI).

CONI has called the ministry’s decree ”illegitimate” because it violates both Italy’s agreement with the IOC and an opinion issued by a government legal panel last month.

The decree also creates ”confusion” because it presents the possibility of more than one body administering tests during the Olympics, CONI has said. It also maintains that, under Italian law, non-Italian athletes face no penalties if they refuse to be tested by the health ministry’s anti-doping commission.

But Cursi rejected that interpretation.

‘Foreign athletes cannot refuse. If they are in Italy they are subject to all tests for athletes and non-athletes,” Cursi said, adding that athletes who test positive will be prosecuted under the law.

CONI refused to comment on Cursi’s statements. It said it was confident the discussions initiated by the Cabinet would resolve the issue but also warned it will go to the courts to have the decree canceled if no solution is found.