Judicial Offences Section Launches Second Case Against Kovesi

Following a five-hour hearing at the SIIJ headquarters, on the same day in which European Parliament and EU Council negotiators were set to start talks on her bid for the leadership of the upcoming European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), Kovesi accused the section of committing several procedural errors which left her unable to prepare a fair defense against her charges.

The former chief of Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) said that, despite being summoned on Thursday to give statements in a case in which she is prosecuted for the 2011 repatriation of a fugitive businessman, she was not allowed to study the entire case file and was only shown snippets instead.

She also told journalists that a group of several lawyers entered the office where the hearing was taking place and informed her that she was a suspect in a different cause, regarding an organized crime group within DNA. Kovesi stated that the official record of the charges presented to her was not signed by the case prosecutor, but instead by the lawyers.

“The official record was drafted while infringing on all of my rights. I do not know what the official accusations are at this moment, because it was only signed by the lawyers, and not by the prosecutor. I did not understand (the official charges, ed.), because it was read very fast. The accusation is that I would have coordinated an organized crime group with DNA prosecutors. No measures were taken,” the former DNA chief told journalists after the hearing.

Sources close to the investigation told MEDIAFAX that the case in question is the one which also involves former DNA Ploiesti prosecutors Lucian Onea and Mircea Negulescu, who are accused of threatening witnesses and forging evidence used for fictitious denunciations, while the entire DNA Ploiesti section is accused of forming an organized crime group.

The prosecutor denied the accusations and decried an ongoing harassment campaign aimed at derailing her bid for the office of EPPO chief prosecutor.

Kovesi is currently suspected of several offences regarding the repatriation of a fugitive businessman from Indonesia in 2011, while she was serving as Romania’s general prosecutor. Another fugitive businessman, Sebastian Ghita, filed a denunciation against Kovesi stating that she requested him to pay for a flight meant to repatriate Nicolae Popa, who was captured by authorities in Jakarta and extradited to Romania.

The former DNA chief received a citation for a hearing on Thursday, when EU Council and European Parliament negotiators were set to begin talks on a common proposal for EPPO leadership. Kovesi ranked first in preferences for the office in voted held by the Parliament’s LIBE and CONT committees, while French prosecutor Jean Francois Bohnert was preferred by the EU Council’s Committee of Permanent Representatives.

If you liked this story, please follow MEDIAFAX.RO on FACEBOOK »

The content of mediafax.ro is for your information only. Republishing or using this content is forbidden without express consent of MEDIAFAX. For this consent, please ask for it by mail at vanzari@mediafax.ro.