Bucharest Court To Hear Appeal Of Blackmail-Charged TV Station Owner On Friday

A lower court in capital Bucharest allowed prosecutors' request and ruled Wednesday to place Diaconescu and Parv under preventive arrest for 29 days.

Diaconescu and Parv were heard by anticorruption prosecutors on Monday and the former was officially charged with blackmail in a corruption file opened in February 2010.

Prosecutors Tuesday morning detained Diaconescu and Parv for 24 hours for allegedly demanding money from Ion Mot, mayor of a commune in Arad county, western Romania, to avoid broadcasting compromising material about him.

According to prosecutors, Mot accused Parv of soliciting bribe in order not to disclose on Diaconescu's TV channel images aimed to discredit him. The decision to start criminal investigation against Diaconescu, dated June 18, shows that the TV station owner threatened Mot, both directly and through Parv, in an attempt to get Mot to give them EUR200,000.

In motivating its decision to put Diaconescu and Parv under preventive custody, the lower court said they both constitute a risk of danger to the public, given the public reaction to the news of their alleged crime and the possibility that they might commit similar crimes in the absence of a stern response to the supposed perpetrators.

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