The five Supreme Court judge panel yesterday rejected all the requests and exceptions raised by lawyers for former premier Adrian Nastase over the “Quality Trophy” case, with the trial to resume May 23. Defence lawyer Liviu Cornel Popescu, pleaded nearly 20 requests and exceptions, among which a challenge request of Elena Matiesescu, a prosecutor at the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA), who attended the session. The lawyer also said that Adrian Nastase should be tried by a nine-judge panel made up of magistrates, criminal and administrative and commercial court judges, as he didn’t reckoned as normal for Adrian Nastase to only be tried by judges from the Penal Section, whose fellow judges sentenced him in the lower court. In connection to the “Quality Trophy”, Nastase is charged with collecting funds for the 2004 presidential campaign where he ran on behalf of the Social-Democrat Party.
