BUCHAREST – Romania’s top court gave former prime minister Adrian Nastase a two-year jail sentence for corruption yesterday, a landmark conviction in the graft-prone European Union country that has prosecuted few senior officials.
Nastase would be the first former prime minister to be sent to jail since the fall of communism in 1989. He remains free pending an appeal. Prosecutors had said the state budget lost $2 million (1.5 million) in 2004 when profits from an event organised by a state construction watchdog were used to finance Nastase’s campaign for the presidency.
Nastase has denied any wrongdoing. “In time it will be shown that this entire process had political motivations behind it,” he told a news conference. – (Reuters)