Romania’s former health minister Nelu Tătaru targeted in bribery investigation

Update 2: DNA officially announced that the Iaşi Territorial Service is investigating Nelu Tătaru on charges of bribery in continuous form (57 material acts). Prosecutors say that, between April 3 and July 12, 2024, as a doctor at the hospital in Huși, he allegedly received sums of money between RON 100 and 500 as bribes, as well as foodstuffs, from 45 people, patients and relatives, for surgical interventions, patient consultations, or to issue medical prescriptions.

Update 1: Former health minister Nelu Tătaru denied any wrongdoing and said he never conditioned the medical treatment.

"I'll let the judiciary do its investigation and then let's see what happens. From my point of view, we must ask ourselves why there was no flagrant [...]. I never asked anything and never conditioned the medical treatment. [...] I don't know where these accusations came from. I tell you again: I am innocent, I only did my job as a doctor," he said upon leaving the DNA Iaşi headquarters, quoted by Agerpres.

His lawyer reportedly confirmed that Tătaru faces charges of bribery.

Initial story: Nelu Tătaru, doctor and former minister of health, was questioned at the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) office in Iaşi on Thursday morning, October 10, in a bribery investigation. According to the local media, he is accused of having taken bribes from patients or their relatives.

Judicial sources cited by Digi24 said that the prosecutors have evidence that Tătaru, currently a surgeon at the hospital in Huși, had received bribery in food or money at least 100 times.

Nelu Tătaru was minister of health during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He is the president of the Vaslui branch of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and deputy, thus benefiting from parliamentary immunity.

However, PNL leader and presidential candidate Nicolae Ciucă announced on Thursday that Nelu Tătaru was released from the position of president of the PNL Vaslui branch and from the leadership of the Health Committee in the Chamber of Deputies,