Sorin Blejnar, former director of the Romanian Tax Authority (ANAF), will remain under pre-trial arrest until January 2017. The ruling is final and was taken in the case in which DNA Ploiesti prosecutors are criminally probing him for influence peddling.
According to Ploiesti Court of Appeals representatives, on Wednesday, judges rejected as groundless the appeal that Blejnar filed against Prahova Court’s November 29 ruling to extend the pre-trial arrest for another 30 days, from December 8 to January 6.
The Ploiesti Court of Appeals ruling is final.
According to the DNA, Blejnar is suspected of having accepted a businessman’s promise to pay him 20 percent of the value of contracts that were about to be awarded by the public institution Blejnar was leading.
“The money was going to be offered to the defendant for him to exercise his influence on subordinates so that the latter would award the contracts to the businessman’s company. In these circumstances, from November 2011 to January 2012, defendant Blejnar Sorin and the rest of the public servants involved in this affair received the total sum of RON 13,172,520, through a company they controlled, company that signed several fictitious contracts with the businessman’s company,” the DNA communique pointed out.
