The former head of Romania’s National Integrity Agency (ANI), Horia Georgescu, was sentenced to four years of jail time for awarding a compensation that damaged the state budget by EUR 84 million in 2008, when he was a member of the National Property Restitution Agency (ANRP).

Former deputy Catalin Theodor Nicolescu was sentenced to 9 years and 4 months of jail time and former deputy Marko Attila-Gabor also got a 5-year sentence in the same case.

Other former ANRP members, including former president Ingrid Zaarour, Mircea-Remus Iuoras, Ingrid Popa-Mocanu, and Remus Baciu, also got jail sentences between 2 years and 7 years.

The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) sent 12 people to court in this case. Most of the defendants were members of the committee that established the value of compensations to be paid to people whose properties had been confiscated by the communist regime or their heirs.

Between 2007 and 2008, several Romanian investors made huge profits buying litigious rights for such properties and getting compensations from ANRP. In this particular case, ANRP decided to award compensations worth RON 375 million (over EUR 100 million at the 2008 exchange rate) to three local investors based on inflated valuation reports. The prosecutors found that Catalin Theodor Nicolescu asked for 5% of the value of the awarded compensations to expedite the procedure and apparently received RON 6.2 million between 2009 and 2013.

The sentences ruled by the Bucharest Court of Appeal are not final. Meanwhile, several similar cases involving former ANRP members, politicians and local businessmen are waiting for court decisions.

editor@romania-insider.com