Former Telekom director Walter Godefroot has stepped aside from his role as consultant to the Astana team following doping allegations by one of his former riders.

Godefroot was accused of complicity in systematic doping by former Telekom rider Jörg Jaksche, who gave a no-holds barred interview with Der Spiegel over the weekend.

Astana team boss Marc Biver announced the news of Godefroot's absence from the Tour, starting this weekend, while also ruling out an internal inquiry within the Swiss-based Kazakh team amid doping allegations against two of their riders.

"Walter has a contract as a technical consultant until the end of July,” Biver said. “He will stay at our service until this date but, as we have two experienced men, Mario Kummer and Adriano Baffi, as sporting directors, he will not be at the Tour de France."

Astana riders Eddy Mazzoleni of Italy and German Matthias Kessler are currently under the cloud of doping claims.

"What inquiry should I launch? We're a new team and I've been in charge since January 1, 2007. I can't say what happened before," Biver told the German daily Der Tagesspiegel in its Tuesday edition. "We have the same controls and have taken the same anti-doping measures as all the other teams. Why should we be punished simply because we have the best riders?"

Biver, however, declined to make results of riders' blood tests public.

Astana last week dropped Mazzoleni from its nine-man Tour de France team due to the doping allegations.

The team led by Tour hopefuls Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan and German Andreas Klöden also said that all its riders had signed or were in the process of signing the UCI commitment to clean cycling, which includes the request for a DNA sample.

Vinokourov and Klöden have both previously finished on the podium at the sport's most prestigious race.