Crinuta Dumitrean, the former head of Romania's property restitution body ANRP - the institution in charge of compensating the people whose properties had been confiscated by the communist regime, was sentenced to 75 months in jail.

She was found guilty for having asked and accepted a EUR 400,000 bribe in exchange for awarding overvalued compensations to local businessman Horia Simu for a 25-ha plot of land in Constanta, on the Black Sea coast, Hotnews.ro reported. Simu also received a 76-month jail sentence.

Other defendants, employees of ANRP or beneficiaries of compensations, also received sentences. The ruling is not final.

Alin Horatiu Dima, the evaluator who inflated the compensated properties' value, got the longest sentence - 116 months in jail.

The court ruled the confiscation of EUR 7.72 million as well.

Among those who received sentences, there is also former UDMR deputy Marko Attila Gabor (now a fugitive in Hungary), who received a 60-month sentence.

According to the prosecutors, the land subject to compensation was overvalued by EUR 7.7 mln, which caused equivalent damage to the state budget and brought unjustified gains for Horia Simu and other persons who benefited from compensations.

This is just one of many cases of overvalued compensations awarded by the ANRP to a relatively small group of local businessmen with political connections, mainly during former president Traian Basescu’s regime.

andrei@romania-insider.com

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