The businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vintu needed medical assistance yesterday, after getting sick in the courtroom, during the second hearing of the case in which he stands charged with assisting the criminal Nicolae Popa. SOV left the Bucharest Court in mid-session, but the hearing continued. Vintu was deferred to justice by the General Prosecutor’s Office in mid-October on charges of having financially assisted Nicolae Popa, in Indonesia, where the latter fled in 2001, after being charged with bankrupting the National Investment Fund (FNI). In this case, Popa was given a final 15 years’ prison sentence by the High Court of Cassation and Justice magistrates. According to the Indonesian authorities, Nicolae Popa is to be extradited to Romania in the course of this month.
