Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice sentenced former agriculture minister Stelian Fuia to three years in prison for abuse of office. The decision is final.

The Bucharest Court of Appeal previously sentenced Fuia to four years in prison on October 7, last year, but he challenged the decision. The High Court took one year off his sentence.

The court found Stelian Fuia guilty of abuse of office for illegally selling assets belonging to the state while he was manager of the Fundulea Research Station of Medicinal Plants, between 2005 and 2007.

According to the prosecutors, Fuia failed to show that the assets that were taken from the Fundulea Research Station of Medicinal Plants through an enforcement procedure were in fact owned by the state and not by the company he managed, which only used those assets. Thus, the state recorded a EUR 355,000 damage.

Fuia was agriculture minister in the Mihai Razvan Ungureanu cabinet, from February until May 2012.

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editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Stelian Fuia on Facebook)