Pubdate: Mon, 07 Dec 1998 Source: Wire: Reuters Copyright: 1998 Reuters Limited. DOPING-FINAL VERDICT EXPECTED IN GERMAN DRUGS TRIAL BERLIN, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The first trial to put former East Germany's doping policy under the spotlight should come to an end with a verdict on Monday. Prosecutors have called for a 14,400 marks ($8,592) fine for Bernd Pansold, the last of six officials of the swimming section of Berlin club SC Dynamo to be judged. Pansold, 56, was the club's head doctor. Like the others on trial he is accused of having caused bodily harm to female swimmers by giving them banned drugs in the 1970s and 1980s. Two of those accused, doctor Dieter Binus and coach Rolf Glaeser, have been convicted by the court and fined. The other three -- coaches Volker Frischke, Dieter Krause and Dieter Lindemann -- saw the cases against them dropped after paying fines. Under German law a court can decide to drop charges in return for payment of a fine if it believes the case does not justify the time and resources needed to bring it to a verdict. The trial opened amid great media attention last March. Earlier, several officials had admitted that the former East German government, seeing sporting success as a vehicle to promote communism, used systematic doping. But the matter had never come to court. A similar trial of five swimming officials from another Berlin club, TSC, started and ended last August. Three were convicted and fined. The other two accepted fines in return for the case against them being dropped. Coaches from other sports, notably athletics, are currently under investigation and more trials should follow. Prosecutors also hope to bring sports officials in the former East German communist party leadership to book for doping. Investigations are under way and charges are expected to be filed soon. A study by historian Giselher Spitzer released this week said some 10,000 athletes were given banned performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids under the state-ordered programme which started in 1968 and lasted until German unification in 1990. Some 500 athletes who used to compete for East Germany suffer from illnesses related to the taking of drugs, including cancer, liver and heart diseases and gynaecological damage, Spitzer wrote. - --- Checked-by: Rich O'Grady