An independent investigation has cleared Lance Armstrong of doping during the 1999 Tour de France and strongly criticised the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, assigned by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to investigate doping allegations surrounding Armstrong, said yesterday testing procedures had been insufficient to label the American's sample positive.

WADA and the French national doping laboratory LNDD had effectively pronounced him guilty of a doping violation without sufficient basis, Vrijman said.

"The report confirms my innocence," said Armstrong, who first won the Tour in 1999 and retired after his record seventh consecutive victory last July.

The findings supported what he had been saying since the "witch-hunt" began, Armstrong said, namely that WADA, the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, newspaper L'Equipe, and the Tour de France organisers had been out to discredit him.

L'Equipe reported last August that it had access to laboratory documents, and six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showed "indisputable" traces of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO).