Mosley Calls for EC Spokesman to be Disciplined

The European Commission should discipline one of its spokesmen for comments made in the row with Formula One over European arrest warrants, the president of the sport's governing body said on Thursday.

In a letter sent to the European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Antonio Vitorini, FIA chief Max Mosley said comments made to the media by spokesman Pietro Petrucci were "unacceptable".

Formula One teams said earlier this week that they would not compete in European Grands Prix unless they were given guarantees they would not be subject to the warrants in the case of a fatality on the track.

Petrucci replied on Wednesday saying the International Automobile Federation (FIA) had "woken up too late" in responding to a measure adopted a year and a half ago and that "nobody is above the law".

"Both allegations are unacceptable," said Mosley's letter. "The one implies that I wish to be above the law, which is untrue and libellous. The other is false in that the teams and their representatives have had innumerable meetings with Commission officials on the European arrest warrant.

"Your spokesman has clearly not made the slightest effort to ascertain the truth before speaking to the press. I leave it to you to take appropriate disciplinary action."

On Wednesday, Mosley expressed confidence that individual governments would back the FIA in the row and said one EU country had already confirmed that the arrest warrants did not apply to sport.

But the row showed no sign of abating, with Vitorino saying on Thursday that there would be no exclusions from the warrants for Formula One.

"I am not aware that there is a country which has excluded sports from the European arrest warrant," he said in Dublin at a meeting of EU ministers.

"My life has not been made easy, because the person who raised this example did not want to give the name of the country in question. Dangerous activities such as some sports activities are not excluded from the warrant."

Seeds Sewn

The warrants have been implemented by eight EU countries so far, including race hosts Belgium, Britain and Spain. The other seven have pledged to implement the legislation by March, before the first race of the year in Europe.

The seeds for the concerns of Formula One teams over the warrants were sewn in the aftermath of the last race fatality in the sport - that of Brazilian World Champion Ayrton Senna at the San Marino Grand Prix in Italy in 1994.

The then technical director and designer of Senna's Williams team, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey, stood trial for manslaughter in Bologna in 1997. They were acquitted and the verdict was upheld in 1999, but the pair were told last year that they must face a new appeal court hearing.

Team bosses have warned repeatedly that they might not race in Italy if they risk conviction under Italian law for race accidents.