Former Romanian minister Elena Udrea, subpoenaed in Microsoft IT licenses case

Former Romanian minister Elena Udrea, currently a deputy in Romania’s Parliament, was called in for questioning, on a subpoena, by the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) on Thursday, January 29. “I’m surprised that the prosecutors decided to act this way considering that I’ve always shown my availability to cooperate with the investigators,” she wrote on her Facebook page. A police car brought her to the DNA headquarters. The prosecutors have already indicted her for money laundering and false statements in her wealth statement, according to judicial sources quoted by Mediafax. Udrea allegedly hid some of her former husband’s illegal money transfers. Elena Udrea left the DNA headquarters after four hours. The prosecutors placed her under judiciary control, which means her freedom of movement is limited. The DNA arrested Elena Udrea’s former husband Dorin Cocos in October 2014 for his involvement in the state’s purchase of overpriced Microsoft IT licenses. Cocos allegedly asked a private company to pay him and others EUR 17.5 million to help it get an extension for IT license deliveries to state authorities. He tried to launder the money via banking transfers between some of his firms. Elena Udrea, who was running for President at the time the scandal broke at end-2014, claimed she didn’t know anything about her husband’s business. The authorities also arrested Gabriel Sandu, former communications minister and Udrea’s colleague in the Government back in 2008-2010. Sandu recently made some serious allegations against his former colleagues in the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) saying he had to pay for his mandate. Sandu claimed that the money went to PDL’s leaders, including former Prime Minister Emil Boc. Former chief prosecutor of the organised crime division DIICOT, Alina Bica, a close friend of Udrea’s, has been serving arrest time since the end of last year, in another corruption case related to overpriced property restitutions. Elena Udrea, 41, was minister of tourism from December 2008 until December 2009 and then minister of regional development and tourism until February 2012. Before that she was state counsellor and head of the Presidential Chancellery under President Traian Basescu. She left the Democratic Liberal Party in 2014 and moved to the People’s Movement Party (PMP), which she runs as president. editor@romania-insider.com