Court Sentences Making Headlines in Romania

Former Social Democrat leader Viorel Hrebenciuc, the former Liberal mayor of Piatra Neamț, Gheorghe Ştefan, and Laura Corina Georgescu, the former head of the National Audio-Visual Council, have received prison sentences

Mihai Pelin, 16.09.2021, 07:55

The
former MP and PSD leader Viorel Hrebenciuc and the former head of Romania’s
National Audio-Visual Council (CNA), Laura Georgescu, have been apprehended by
the police. The two got prison sentences for having given a licence to Giga TV,
a television channel belonging to Gheorghe Stefan, shortly after the station
had its licence removed.

Viorel Hrebenciuc
got a three-year prison sentence while Laura Georgescu is going to stay behind
bars 4 years and 4 months. The station’s owner, the Liberal mayor of Piatra
Neamt in northern Romania, Gheorghe Stefan got a prison sentence of 4 years and
6 months in the same file. Stefan had been given a first sentence by a court in
Bucharest but judges ruled that the former sentence was too short for the offenses
committed.

Narcisa
Iorga, another former CNA member, has got a three-year suspended sentence but
has to carry out up to 120 days of unpaid work. She was initially convicted to
serving a three-years in prison. The National Anti-Corruption Directorate
managed to bring these offenders to court in July 2015. Laura Georgescu was
being investigated for abuse of office and incitement to forgery while
Hrebenciuc and Stefan on influence peddling.

According
to the DNA, in September 2013, the CNA decided to remove the licence for Giga
TV, a television Channel owned by Gheorghe Stefan at that time. According to
prosecutors, Iorga would later advise Stefan to use his connections in the
political area to influence the voting the other CNA members were supposed to
cast over the decision challenged by the aforementioned TV channel.

According
to DNA prosecutors, Hrebenciuc used his influence and got directly involved so
that the institution headed by Laura Georgescu at that time may reconsider its
decision. As a result of all these pressures, the CNA, an institution in charge
of Romania’s audio and visual operators, cancelled its first decision allowing
the functioning of the Giga TV channel.

We
recall that Hrebenciuc and his son Andrei in July were convicted in a file on
the illegal restitution of forests but the court ruling in this case is not
definitive. Hrebenciuc was also placed under investigation for embezzlement in
a file concerning the funding of the 2009 election campaign for the Social
Democratic Party but he was acquitted in 2017. He used to be one of the most
influential Social-Democrats since the foundation of this party until his
withdrawal from politics.

He got
five MP mandates until 2016 and served as the vice-president of the party from
1992 until 2004. He was also the party’s chief-negotiator with the rest of the
political groups in Romania. A businessman and former football club owner
Gheorghe Stefan is also a notorious figure on Romania’s political stage. Stefan
remarked himself through the consistent support provided to the country’s
former president Traian Basescu. Stefan was also convicted for various offenses
in the past.