Famous Romanian surgeon loses almost EUR 4 million which he can't justify

The Wealth Investigation Agency of the Bucharest Appeal Court approved the request of the National Integrity Agency to seize EUR 3.6 million and USD 414,000 from famous Romanian surgeon Serban Bradisteanu, the head of the heart surgery department of the Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest, News.ro reported. The court will be notified of this decision, and will be sent a proposal that the amount is seized. The National Integrity Agency decided back in 2008 to seize this amount because the surgeon could not justify obtaining it from legal sources. Bradisteanu apparently got this sum between 2000 and 2004, when he was a senator representing the Social Democratic Party (PSD). However, a 2011 ordinance of the Wealth Investigation Agency dismissed the case. The National Integrity Agency challenged this ordinance at the Bucharest Appeal Court and the High Court of Cassation and Justice. In 2014, the High Court sent the surgeon’s case back to the Bucharest Appeal Court to give its decision on the unjustified sums that were proposed for confiscation. The National Integrity Agency managed to prove to the Wealth Investigation Agency that the surgeon couldn't justify these sums, so the Wealth Investigation Agency allowed the request of the National Integrity Agency that the sums are seized. The surgeon’s case sets a precedent as appeals against such ordinances, issued by wealth investigation commissions and dismissing a case, were previously considered inadmissible. This was the first time a court decided that such ordinances are administrative acts and the National Integrity Agency can challenge them in court. The National Integrity Agency argues the surgeon obtained these sums between 2000 and 2004, when he served as a Social Democratic Party PSD senator. The agency found “an obviously unjustified difference between the acquired wealth and the [doctor’s] legally obtained wealth.” In 2015, surgeon Bradisteanu received a one-year suspended prison sentence from the High Court of Cassation and Justice for favoring a convict. He was accused of helping former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase delay serving his prison sentence in the “Quality Trophy” file, after his attempted suicide. In the Quality Trophy case, Nastase was convicted for illegal fund-raising for the 2004 electoral campaign. The prosecutors found that Bradisteanu used his cardiovascular surgeon prerogatives to admit Nastase in the department he ran although the latter’s diagnostic did not call for such an admission. A year before, in March 2014, three judges from the High Court of Cassation and Justice had decided to acquit Bradisteanu in the same case. In 1999, Bradisteanu, together with surgeon Radu Deac, performed the first heart transplant in Romania, at the Floreasca Emergency Hospital in Bucharest.