Romania’s former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced to two years in prison by the Supreme Court, the first jail sentence for a top-ranking politician in the country.
Nastase, 61, a member of the Social Democratic Party, together with five other officials, was charged with taking part in organizing an event to illegally collect money for his presidential campaign in 2004, a Supreme Court official said in a live broadcast on TVR television station in Bucharest today. Nastase, who has denied any wrongdoing, still faces other corruption charges.
Romania’s Supreme Court found Nastase innocent in December in another corruption case, where he was charged for bribing Ioan Melinescu, the former head of the country’s anti-money laundering agency, to stop a probe into his wife’s bank account, where he allegedly hid a bribe of about $400,000.
“There is no evidence against me and I will appeal the court’s decision,” Nastase said in a phone interview to Realitatea TV, a private television station in Bucharest. “This is an attempt to keep me away from the political life.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Andra Timu in Bucharest at atimu@bloomberg.net; Irina Savu in Bucharest at isavu@bloomberg.net
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