IMPARȚIALITATE·INTEGRITATE·EFICIENȚĂ
October, 20th, 2014
No. 1480/VIII/3
To complete the press releases no. 1478 from the 20th of October 2014, the Information and Public Relations Office is authorized to provide the following data:
The Prosecutors within the National Anticorruption Directorate - the Section for Combating Corruption have ordered the start of the criminal investigation against the following person:
DAN ŞOVA, Vice-president of a party, Senator within the Romanian Parliament, charged with the traffic of influence.
The criminal investigation ordinance drawn up by the prosecutors indicated that there are data and clues leading to the reasonable suspicion regarding the following state of facts:
On the 17th of October 2014, Viorel Hrebenciuc, acting as a leader of the parliamentary group of a party within the Chamber of Deputies, vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies and a member of the al National Executive Committee of that party, interceded with the suspect Dan Şova, a member of the same political party, in order to convince him to initiate a legislative proposal on amnesty and pardon of punishments.
Thus, during a meeting, the two discussed in full detail about the accusations Viorel Hrebenciuc is charged with, with regards to the restoration of property rights regarding some forests areas, about the conditions of criminalization and the risk of being sentenced (file publicized through press releases no. 1474/VIII/3 from the 17th of October and no. 1436, 1450 and 1454 from the 15th and 16th of October 2014).
To prevent the execution of any punishment imposed on a representative member of the party (which was sentenced to imprisonment indefinitely in the first instance for bribery) and to avoid a possible conviction of Viorel Hrebenciuc to be enforced, Viorel Hrebenciuc asked the suspect Dan Sova to ensure him that a law for amnesty and pardons will be adopted, a request that his party colleague accepted.
In the same context, the suspect Dan Sova accepted Hrebenciuc’s promise that he would help him get the party president position, a party of which the two belong, in the detriment of the other two possible candidates, and to convince the Minister of Justice to initiate a project of law referring to the abating of art. 13 of Law no. 78/2000. Since Hrebenciuc is accused in two criminal files for perpetrating the offences provided by art. 13 of Law no. 78/2000 (see press release no. 1246/VIII/3 from the 4th of September 2014 and press release no. 1450/VIII/3 from the 15th of October 2014), the project would have been directly related to him, preventing his criminal investigation.
Since the abating of Art. 13 of Law no. 78/2000 would have been a controversial step, the two concluded that it cannot be done by a legislative proposal of a parliamentary, but by a law project initiated by the Ministry of Justice.
Within this context, Hrebenciuc Viorel promised Dan Sova that, in exchange for his help to become the president of the party, he will intercede with the Minister of Justice to initiate such a project, since he himself cannot become the Minister of Justice because of the criminal file in which he acts as a suspect. (see Press Release no 1194 from the 13th of August 2014).
In exchange, Viorel Hrebenciuc promised Dan Sova that he will convince more members of the party, that were are his circle of influence, to support him.
Other people are also investigated in this case.
It should be mentioned that this stage of the criminal case represents, according to the Criminal Procedure Code, the completion of the criminal investigation and the referral of the indictment to the court, for trial, a situation which cannot, under any circumstances, infringe the principle of presumption of innocence.
THE INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE