Former Romanian deputy arrested in illegal restitutions case

Romanian politician Viorel Hrebenciuc, one of the most influential members of Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s Social Democratic Party (PSD), was held by anticorruption prosecutors on Tuesday, October 28, after being questioned for more than two hours in the illegal forest restitutions case in which his son has already been arrested last week. The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) has also asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for 30 days on Hrebenciuc’s name. The court decided, on Wednesday, to arrest Hrebenciuc for 30 days. The prosecutors were able to take this decision after Viorel Hrebenciuc officially lost his position as member of de Deputies’ Chamber and the immunity that goes along with that. He resigned from the Deputies’ Chamber last week and his colleagues officially acknowledged his resignation on Monday, October 27. Hrebenciuc resigned after the National Anticorruption Directorate asked the Deputies Chamber to waive his immunity and to let him be prosecuted and arrested in a corruption and influence peddling case related to the illegal restitution of 43,000 hectares of forests, worth some EUR 300 million. According to DNA, Viorel Hrebenciuc would have received some 12,000 hectares of forests, had this scheme been finalized. Hrebenciuc said that he had done nothing wrong and this is why he decided to resign from the Parliament and let prosecutors indict him. “I have demonstrated to my gesture (to resign – e.n.) that I’m not afraid, because I know what I did. I have no reason not to go with an open heart in front of the DNA prosecutors,” he said before entering the DNA Brasov headquarters, on Tuesday. His son, Andrei Hrebenciuc, was arrested last week for aiding his father in the restitution scheme. Two other people were arrested in the case. Hrebenciuc is investigated intwo other influence peddling cases. editor@romania-insider.com