Former Romanian secretary of state sent to court for EUR 5.3 mln bribe

Marin Anton, a former deputy of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and former secretary of state in the Transport Ministry, was sent to court for having allegedly received a bribe of RON 23 million (EUR 5.3 million, at the 2009 exchange rate) from the company that built the new terminal of the Otopeni Airport. Mihai Adrian Ionescu, a former advisor to the transport minister, who currently holds a management position within the highways company CNADNR, was also sent to court for complicity to bribery. Italian group Astaldi built the new terminal of the Henri Coanda International Airport. The prosecutors haven’t nominated the company but said that its local representative, who handed the bribe to Marius Anton, was a witness in this case. The project for modernizing the Otopeni Airport had been approved in 2007, but it needed to be updated in 2009, and the construction contract’s value had to be increased. According to the anticorruption prosecutors, Marin Anton approved the project and pushed it through the Government after he received some EUR 5.3 million, representing 3.5% of the extra sum allotted for this project, from the contractor. Anton was also a general manager of the now closed Rafo Onesti refinery and a close collaborator of former development minister Elena Udrea, according to local Hotnews. editor@romania-insider.com