OP here. No connection to Paul before having started the thread. I simply read an article that had come up about him and got a feeling something wasn't right so I ended up contacting Paul directly on facebook and asked him to address some questions in this thread, which he has tried to do.
I think Ultraboy is asking fair questions, but at the same time doesn't know much about the case so may be asking questions that seem obvious and therefore it comes off as sticking his head in the sand and just repeating the same thing over and over. One thing people ought to know is this: the case deals with a lot of science that is way over most of our heads and the organization of all the documents associated with the case are a bit of a mess. There are hundreds if not thousands of pages of documents in addition to a fair amount of emails. Most of the documents are paper-only given the time most of this went on was before we were putting things online.
I tried to start organizing the documents electronically, but to actually do that properly I would need to temporarily leave my coaching job here in California and fly out to wherever it is Paul lives. I don't have the time or money to do that.
Like Ultraboy, I am not 100% convinced of Paul's innocence simply because, well, how could any of us know for sure what someone else has done in their life? We can't, right? What I am convinced of 100% is that the way his case has played out is outrageous.
Paul has denied any wrongdoing in both 94 and 97. What is his defense? That he didn't do it, the labs messed up (this has been documented) and then they proceeded to cover it up (this has also been documented).
I think this case is a little more complex because it's not just Paul Edwards' career and reputation that are on the line, but Professor Cowan's as well as the anti-doping establishment as a whole. So you've got the head of the 2012 London Olympic's anti-doping science center versus some guy everyone forgot about a long time ago. If you take Professor Cowan down, how bad does that look for anti-doping? If the head of the 2012 Olympics anti-doping has lied about something like this for 20+ years, what else has he lied about? That's a big problem in my view. Cowan is in too big of a position to fail, which means Edwards is unfortunately collateral damage at this point.
In my opinion this case could never be understood via a thread like this, especially on such an outdated form where it's very difficult to post documents. I think a 1 page overview of the case would be helpful, then a 10 page summary for the layman, then a 100+ page for those who want to read the science and all of the different emails and other communications. Until something like that is put together, it's too hard to remember all the connections.