IMPARȚIALITATE·INTEGRITATE·EFICIENȚĂ
March, 16th, 2015
No. 512/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 the 16th of March 2015, against the defendant:
GEORGESCU HORIA, acting as a member of the Central Commission for Establishing the Compensations within the National Authority for Restitution of Properties, at the time the acts were committed, charged for perpetrating 3 offences of abuse of office, with aggravated consequences if the public official received an undue benefit for himself or other.
The pretrial detention ordinance drawn up by the prosecutors indicated that there are data and indicia leading to the reasonable suspicion describing the following state of facts:
During January 2015, the Romanian Government – the National Authority for Restitution of Properties notified the National Anticorruption Directorate regarding the fact that, during 2008 - 2009, the assessment reports of the buildings for which compensation was paid, according to the provisions of the Law no. 247/2005, did not comply with the requirements of the International Assessment Standards, regarding the estimation of the market value of the respective buildings.
During the respective period of time, the Central Commission for Establishing the Compensations within the National Authority for Restitution of Properties, with the defendant Georgescu Horia acting as a member, approved the assessment reports drafted by the evaluation experts, related to a number of 3 files, by violating the International Assessment Standards, the provisions of the Law no. 247/2005 regarding the reform in the fields of property and justice, as well as some adjoining measures, by which the buildings for which damages were claimed have been over-assessed.
The total value of the buildings that have been assessed and subject to the compensation claims amounted, according to the expert evaluators, to 129,709.168 Euro (467,448,907 Lei).
The analysis of the assessment reports for the 3 files showed that the designated evaluators did not hold a correspondence with banks, notaries, land registry offices, real estate agencies etc. regarding the transactions already made/certain, regarding similar real estate properties.
In two cases, the appointed evaluators used, as part of the direct comparison method, sale ads published online or in newspapers, without holding any correspondence with holders of information on certain transactions with real estate properties, that would have constituted an objective criterion, qualified to determine the real price of the real estate market.
In conclusion, in the case of the 3 files, the Central Commission for Establishing the Compensations issued compensation bonds based on the evaluation reports that have not complied with the requirements of the International Assessment Standards, regarding the estimation of the market value of buildings, as well as with the provisions of article 10 paragraph 6 and 7 of Law no. 247/2005, regarding the reform in the property and justice, as well as some additional measures, over-assessing the respective immovable goods to the total amount of about 75 million euro. The state budget was damaged with this amount, while simultaneously obtaining undue compensation by the holders and assignees of compensation rights.
Other criminal investigation acts are also performed against other people in this case.
The defendant Georgescu Horia was informed about his legal status and charges, according to the provisions of article 309 of the Penal Procedure Code, and he will be brought to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, 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 Penal Procedure Code, carried out in order to create procedural framework for gathering of evidence, an activity which cannot, under any circumstances, infringe the principle of presumption of innocence.
THE INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE