Former head of Romania's tax agency gets five-year final jail sentence

The Bucharest Court of Appeal convicted former head of the tax collection agency (ANAF) Sorin Blejnar to 5 years of jail time for influence peddling. The decision is final.

The first court had sentenced Blejnar to six years in prison, but the Court of Appeal slightly reduced the sentence.

Blejnar told Mediafax that the decision was “extremely unfair” and the judges ignored all the evidence he presented in his defense.

“It is a very unfair decision, a decision given by ignoring all the evidence I filed, a decision based on a file made by the famous [Ploiesti anticorruption prosecutor Mircea Negulescu, also known as] Portocala, who is currently subject to investigations for unjust repression and evidence forging,” Blejnar said.

Sorin Blejnar, the former ANAF chief, was sent to court by the Ploiesti office of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in 2016, on charges of influence peddling. According to the prosecutors, in 2011, Blejnar accepted from a businessman the promise to get 20% of the value of some public procurement contracts that ANAF had initiated.

(Photo source: Gov.ro)