Heated exchanges between PSD leaders and the Macovei camp continue.
After the Bucharest Court decision according to which there is no obstacle in enforcing the two-year executory sentence issued against Adrian Nastase, on Wednesday night the former premier was taken from the Floreasca Hospital to the intensive care ward of the Rahova Penitentiary. The ward has two beds, penitentiary representatives stated for Mediafax. Because the imprisonment warrant was executed, the police have dropped its request concerning the forensics report. According to Realitatea TV, Nastase was heard for attempted murder because he allegedly endangered the life of the policemen he was in the same room with during his suicide attempt. Irina Jianu, former general inspector within the State Constructions Inspectorate, sentenced to six years in jail in the ‘Quality Trophy’ case, ended up in the Bacau Penitentiary after spending five days under preventive arrest. While former premier Adrian Nastase was taken out on stretchers, Floreasca Hospital manager Radu Macovei stated for Romania TV that the signing out procedures took so long because of red tape, “a lot of copies” being needed. At the same time, Dr. Macovei stated he will ask the hospital not to take such cases in the future. The announcement came as the National Anticorruption Office (DNA) started to investigate Serban Bradisteanu, the doctor that took care of Nastase, the prosecutors charging him with “attempting to foil the enforcement of the sentence issued by the High Court of Justice.” Four police officers are investigated alongside Bradisteanu. Dr. Ioan Lascar, another doctor that treated Nastase, and Bucharest Police Chief Petre Toba were summoned for hearings at the DNA headquarters. In other developments, DNA rejected yesterday the accusations made by Justice Minister Titus Corlatean. The latter stated that there were leaks in the Nastase case. “The allegation that a DNA employee placed any recording or transcript from the files currently handled by the DNA at mass media’s disposal is groundless.” During Wednesday’s government meeting, Premier Victor Ponta asked the Internal Affairs and Health ministers to issue an official message to policemen and doctors in order to encourage them to continue doing their duty and to assure them they have the government’s support, considering the “attacks” seen in recent hours. On the other hand, Ponta reiterated that he does not want to comment the Nastase case in order to avoid any allegation that he puts pressure on the justice system, adding nevertheless that he does not understand why the statements of an “irresponsible woman MEP that rouses pity” are accepted, referring to the accusations made by PDL MEP Monica Macovei. In his opinion, a prosecutor can never give a verdict in a medical case. “I would have a lot of things to say, I’m a former magistrate, man of law, and this concerns a person I know very well – but I can abstain precisely in order to avoid hearing that an important politician or that politicians are putting pressure on the justice system, but at the same time an irresponsible woman – I won’t name her, she rouses only pity – knows everything all day long, she knows what doctors are supposed to do, she wants to arrest us all so that only she and Mr. Basescu, who issues threats all day, remain free. She too is a politician, a MEP too by coincidence, yet this is not pressure on justice? CSM does not take note that someone is exerting pressure? So you are only allowed to exert pressure from one side alone, from President Basescu’s side,” Ponta stated on Antena 3. After pointing out illegalities in the Nastase case in recent days, former justice minister and current PDL MEP Monica Macovei once again asked, alongside MEP Cristian Preda, for the resignation of Premier Victor Ponta and Internal Affairs Minister Ioan Rus following this row. “Ponta and Rus (…) knew that Nastase can be jailed and that the hospital is just a hiding place. Despite that, the two sought to draw political profit from the emotion created by the suicide hypothesis,” Preda wrote on his blog. “The enforcement of the imprisonment warrant was illegally interrupted by the action of the police, more precisely by Minister Rus’s action. (…) Nastase, Rus and Ponta are taking us to Europe’s garbage bin, they are making efforts to turn us into a joke. (…) Ponta has to immediately resign from the office of Prime Minister and to take Rus with him in order to lessen this embarrassment,” Macovei wrote too.
