Former Romanian presidential advisor allegedly gets 25% of illegal restitution
A quarter of the money Romanian businessman Horia Simu illegally received as compensation for a land plot in Constanta went to one of former President Traian Basescu's advisors, according to Simu.
Horia Simu was sent to court in an illegal restitution case in which the anticorruption prosecutors charged him with accessory to abuse of power, bribery, and money laundering. Simu received a EUR 8.75 million compensation, in May 2011, for a land plot in Constanta that was worth eight times less. He had bought the litigious rights for that land plot in 2011 for EUR 700,000.
The state took a EUR 7.7 million damage in this file alone, according to the prosecutors.
Eight former officials from Romania’s National Property Restitution Authority – ANRP, including former president Crinuta Dumitrean, were also sent to court for abuse of power. They allegedly received money from Horia Simu to approve the compensation for the land. The valuator who determined the plot’s value was also indicted.
“It is unfair that the moral authors of this case have been left aside,” Simu told the journalists as he went to court on Tuesday, July 26. He explained that Daniel Moldoveanu, a former official within Romania’s Presidency, offered to help him get the compensations, as he knew Crinuta Dumitrean, the ANRP president.
“The fact that he’s not indicted in this file is unfair. 25% of the money went to him,” Simu added.
Daniel Moldoveanu was a state counselor in the Presidency’s National Security Department under former President Traian Basescu from 2005 until 2014.
When asked to comment about Simu’s allegations, Basescu said that “it’s about one man, not the whole Presidency”, according to Mediafax.
editor@romania-insider.com
