Barry Bonds, the all-time Major League home-run king, was incriminated, on Thursday, for the fact that he denied even under oath that he used steroids. He was charged of obstruction of justice in testimony to a grand jury in December 2003 by a federal court in San Francisco.

The 43 years old baseball superstar was interrogated during an investigation at the Balco Laboratories, which was closed soon after it was found that it was illegally distributing steroids to athletes

"During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes," the indictment said.

Bonds said that he has taken substances from his personnel trainer, Gleg Anderson, but he declared under oath that he thought those were flaxseed oil, not steroids. However, this year, he and Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones have pleaded guilty of lying the federal investigators over her steroid use in connection to the Balco case

Bonds has broke the all-time career home-run record last season, with 762 career home-runs, defeating Hank Aaron’s 1976 record of 755, but the steroid use has cast a cloud of questions over the reality of the record, which was one of America's most cherished sports milestones.

After debuting in the Major League Baseball for the Pittsburg Pirates in 1986, San Francisco Giants was the team where Bonds played most of his career and which has refused to sign him for another season, making him free of agent. He joined the Giants in 1993. Also, physical problems that he suffered in the late years have made him not to be as popular or appreciated as he was before.

The charges came as a surprise, since there have passed four years since the trial has begun, and observers thought that the police did not find enough evidence in order to indict him.