Important decisions in corruption cases
The investigations of the Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors continue to unveil the scope of corruption in Romania,
Bogdan Matei, 30.04.2015, 13:39
Irrespective of the position they hold, of the region they are living in, of the party or the ethnic minority they represent, people who were never before suspected of committing any crime are now making headlines, as the National Anti-Corruption Directorate’s investigations have unveiled their illegal actions that brought them lots of money and drained public budgets. The director of the State Protocol Authority, Gabriel Surdu, was arrested on Wednesday for having intervened and asked the former president of the Buzau County Council, Cristian Bigiu, a member of the Social Democratic Party, in the ruling coalition, after he left, last autumn, the National Liberal Party, now in opposition, to grant public contracts to a company he held by means of intermediaries.
Following his intervention he got a contract worth 11 million euros. After having been placed in temporary custody in December 2014 for bribe taking, Bigiu is now under house arrest. Other corrupt people exposed by the anti-corruption prosecutors are mayor Raduly Robert and the deputy mayor Domokos Szoke of the town of Miercurea Ciuc, in central Romania, both members of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania. They are charged with illegally granting public contracts from 2007 to date, in exchange for substantial sums of money. Taking the example of other corrupt politicians, mayor Raduly denied having taken any bribe and claimed he was the victim of political vendetta.
Political and ethnic persecution were also arguments invoked by another former Hungarian MP, Marko Attila, arguments which are hard to accept, given that his party has been part of many coalition governments that have ruled Romania in the past years. The Bucharest Supreme Court greenlighted the pre-trial arrest of Marko Attila, in his absence, charging him with abuse of office. The magistrates have thus admitted the request of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate prosecutors who claim that the suspect, who is currently in Hungary, was actually avoiding criminal investigation after he was accused alongside other members of the National Authority for Property Restitution of having approved the payment of overvalued damages, which incurred losses worth over 84 million euros to the state.
If Marko Attila does not appear before the Romanian court, a European arrest warrant might be issued on his name. However his former colleague in the Social Democratic Party, Ioan Ochi, gets to keep his parliamentary immunity after the Chamber of Deputies rejected, with 108 votes for and 152 against, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate’s request to place him under arrest. Accused of abuse of office and bribe taking for deeds perpetrated between 2011- 2012, when he was the acting vice-president of the Brasov County Council, Ochi benefited on Wednesday from his colleagues’ solidarity in a vote that stains even more the already marred image of Romania’s Parliament.
