Corruption under Prosecution
The High Court of Cassation and Justice has started the trial of former Tourism Minister Elena Udrea.
Valentin Țigău, 22.04.2015, 13:24
A former minister of tourism and regional development, Elena Udrea is currently being prosecuted and held in preventive detention by anti-corruption prosecutors in the so-called ‘Gala Bute’ case. The trial is setting up to be one of the most intensely covered by the media in the history of Romanian justice, since Udrea is one of former president Basescu’s most reliably supported people.
The 41 year-old Udrea was head of the former president’s chancery, a member of Parliament and leader of the Popular Movement Party — on whose behalf she ran for president last autumn. She was arrested in February this year, after the National Anti-Corruption Directorate got Parliament’s approval for her prosecution. The case is the so-called ‘Bute Gala’, the charge is corruption. In 2011, the famous Romanian boxer Lucian Bute, a world IBF champion, fought in the ring with Jean Paul Mendy, in a massive event organized in Bucharest by the Ministry of Tourism and Regional Development.
The funds for the gala are said to have been obtained illegally by Elena Udrea, who, in addition to this case, is allegedly involved in bribery at the Ministry of Regional Development in the running of contracts with Termogaz Company and payments made by the National Investment Company. In the ‘Gala Bute’ case, she is joined in the defendant’s box by former minister of the economy, Ion Ariton, as well as the former head of the Romanian Boxing Federation, Rudel Obreja, and various public servants, for activities between 2010 and 2012.
The National Anti-Corruption Directorate claims that the former minister of tourism ran a system by which she would get large amounts of money from private companies to guarantee timely payment to them for dealings with the ministry. The money allegedly reached Elena Udrea in cash, in the form of payments for goods or services, or was cashed in by Rudel Obreja or the Liberal Democratic Bucharest branch, whose president Udrea was, resulting in significant damage to the national budget and some companies. According to the charges, the payments benefiting the Bucharest branch of the Liberal Democratic Party, obtained as a result of acts of corruption, came in by several avenues, including by deposit into party accounts, in the guise of donations. Udrea has been claiming consistently that the money came from donors who wanted to remain anonymous.
