IMPARȚIALITATE·INTEGRITATE·EFICIENȚĂ
September, 6th, 2015
No. 1438/VIII/3
PRESS RELEASE
The prosecutors within the National Anticorruption Directorate – the Section for Combating Corruption have ordered the start of the criminal investigation and the pretrial detention for 24 hours, starting with 6 September 2015, 00:33 am, up to 7 September 2015, 00:33 am, against the defendant: OPRESCU SORIN MIRCEA, Mayor of Bucharest municipality, charged with the offence of taking bribe.
The ordinance drawn up by the prosecutors showed that there are data and indicia leading to the reasonable suspicion describing the following state of facts:
During 2013-2015, a well-organized group, that included the defendant OPRESCU SORIN MIRCEA, set up a mechanism within the local administration of Bucharest Municipality. According to this mechanism, the trade operators willing to be awarded with contracts by the public institutions subordinated to the Mayor, had to pay, as bribe, a part of the gross profit achieved from the execution of those contracts to decision-making factors within the institution of the Mayor of Bucharest Municipality.
Thus, the company executing the works was expected to keep for itself a percentage between 30% and 33% of the gross profit, while the difference was paid to the public officials within the institution of the Mayor of Bucharest Municipality, as bribe. A percentage of 10% of the value of the contract was requested to be paid to the defendant OPRESCU SORIN MIRCEA.
Basically, the members of the group, people with management positions within the two public institutions subordinated to the Mayor of Bucharest Municipality, were in charge with facilitating the awarding of the contract. They were expected to convince their subordinates to accept the contract awarding documents, as well as to approve and order the payment of the invoices issued by the respective companies, very soon after the issuing of the respective invoices. They also requested amounts of money for people in management positions within the institution of the Mayor of Bucharest Municipality, as well as for the Mayor.
On 05 September 2015, based on a previous agreement with the leader of a public institution subordinated to him and with another highly trusted person, the defendant OPRESCU SORIN MIRCEA received from the first mentioned the amount of 25,000 euro, out of the total of 60,000 euro requested by the two intermediates from a number of four denouncers.
In this case, the prosecutors benefit of specialized support of the Romanian Intelligence Service.
The defendant OPRESCU SORIN MIRCEA was informed about his legal status and charges, according to the provisions of article 309 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
On 6 September 2015, he will be brought to the Bucharest Tribunal, with a proposal of pretrial detention for 30 days.
It should be mentioned that the start of the criminal action represents a stage of a criminal trial regulated by the Criminal Procedure Code, a situation which cannot, under any circumstances, infringe the principle of presumption of innocence.
THE INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE