Former Constanta mayor Radu Mazare’s brother Alexandru Mazare, a former senator, also left to Madagascar on holiday, his lawyer told the court yesterday, reports local Digi24.

However, he said he would come back, unlike his brother who went to Madagascar before Christmas and said he would ask for political asylum there.

The Mazare brothers are being tried for corruption in a case related to the development of a social housing campus in Constanta. A businessman indicted in this case, Avraham Morgenstern, was recently arrested in Argentina, and the Romanian authorities are trying to get him extradited.

Radu Mazare was sent to court in April 2016 for allegedly taking a EUR 175,000 bribe from Avraham Morgenstern’s firm to help it win a EUR 10 million public contract for the construction of a social housing campus in Constanta. Radu Mazare received EUR 95,000 while his brother Alexandru Mazare allegedly got the remaining EUR 80,000, via a bank in Israel, according to the prosecutors.

editor@romania-insider.com