A six-year doping scandal implicating the bulk of Greece's weightlifting squad for the Beijing Olympics ended on Friday with the acquittal of those charged, state agency ANA reported.
Former national coach Christos Iakovou -- a Greek sports hero credited with mentoring the team to a haul of medals at previous Olympic Games -- had been charged with administering performance-enhancing drugs to his lifters.
The case broke three months before the Beijing Games when eleven athletes, including several members of the Olympic squad, tested positive in a surprise check-up by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The athletes were banned from the Games and the controversy effectively destroyed Greece's chances of winning any medals at the event.
At the time, the lifters had also been handed two-year bans by the International Weightlifting Federation.
Iakovou, facing a maximum five-year term if convicted, had blamed a Chinese drugs manufacturer for the controversy.
He claimed that a batch of vitamins tainted with steroids was sent to Greece by mistake and given to the lifters.
The prosecutor on Friday accepted this argument and called for the acquittal of those charged, ANA said.
In 2011, a Greek court had also cleared former sprint stars Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou of perjury in a trial stemming from another doping scandal at the Athens 2004 Olympics.
The sprinters had claimed that a motorcycle accident led them to miss a doping test on the eve of the 2004 Games.
