The High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ) decided on Tuesday to summon the former PM Victor Ponta as a witness, on February 15, in the case in which the Senate’s Speaker Calin Popescu-Tariceanu is judged for perjury and for favoring the perpetrator.
At the Tuesday’s hearing, the former parliamentarian Serban Mihailescu came in the courtroom, although he wasn’t summoned. Judges announced that he was indicted for perjury after making contradictory statements in this case, but the magistrates told him that he will not be heard at this hearing, for the moment.
However, Dan Andronic (photo) and PNL Vice Chair Dan Motreanu were heard as witnesses.
Political Consultant Dan Andronic stated in the courtroom that he knows Tariceanu since 1992, but he had a closer relationship with him since 2007, because their wives were friends.
“I worked with Tariceanu as a consultant. The relationship ended after he was no longer PM and was almost totally interrupted after Tariceanu broke up with Ioana Valmar. My wife remained friendly with her. (…) I didn’t have a friendship with Tariceanu. We knew each other, we were fellows. Friendship is a different thing. We were meeting each other in a circle of relationships. Usually we were meeting at the restaurant. My wife’s children used to go to the same school as Tariceanu’s son. They weren’t my kids. They were two daughters of my wife from another relationship. (…) In 2009, I started to provide consultancy services to Traian Basescu and PDL, so I terminated the contract with PNL. After the divorce from Ioana Valmar, I could say that my relationship with Tariceanu has frozen. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t call each other on the phone, or maybe we even met each other again on meetings” Andronic stated.
He added that he met Marius Marcovici, who was Dorin Marian’s counselor, a former head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery during Tariceanu’s term, while he was a consultant for PSD in the 2004 electoral campaign.
“Marcovici was part of the staff of the American and Israeli consultants, being in charge of PSD. After 2004, I haven’t seen him for a long period of time, but he reappeared after he company owned by me and Tal Silberstein started to provide consultancy services to PNL. I found out later that Marcovici became Dorin Marian’s counselor at the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, and I saw him at the Victoria Palace. Marcovici had Israeli origin and he was a translator many times. I didn’t recommend Marcovici in order to be hired by the Government” Andronic also said.
Answering to a question, Andronic admitted that he invited Tariceanu to his wedding organized at Monte Carlo, and put him to the same table with Shimon Shevez, because the latter had very high relations in USA and Israel.
Political consultant Dan Andronic also stated on Tuesday at ICCJ that Dorin Marian showed him, when he was the head of the PM’s Chancellery, that he found a microphone in a socket from his office. Andronic also told this in the courtroom, were hearings were conducted in the case in which Calin Popescu Tariceanu is judged for perjury.
“I think it was a microphone, I didn’t checked it. Anyway, it was hanging from a socket in Dorin Marian’s office. He told me then that he called those from… I don’t know from where, to remove what they had there. I think it was in 2008, when he was appointed as the head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery. He said: I used a socket and a microphone fell. I didn’t elaborate” Andronic stated when exiting the courtroom where a new hearing took place in the case in which Calin Popescu Tariceanu is accused of perjury.
Andronic reported the episode also in the courtroom, mentioning later that he said exactly what he remembered.
In October 2017, the Supreme Court resumed from scratch the case in which the Senate’s Speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu is judged for perjury in the case of the restitution of an area of the Snagov Forest and of the Baneasa Farm, being indicted by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) on July 7, 2016, for perjury and favoring the perpetrator.
According to DNA, on April 15, 2016, under the investigation related to the restitution of an area of the Snagov Forest and Baneasa Farm, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, in the statement taken under oath, “made statements that do not correspond to the truth on essential issues of the case about which he was asked, and he didn’t tell everything he knows about essential circumstances, thus attempting to prevent criminal liability of certain defendants in the case”. Thus, the Senate’s Speaker is accused of making the false statement according to which he didn’t know that certain lands in Baneasa (the former royal farm) and Snagov (the forest part called Fundul Sacului) have been restituted to Paul Phillippe of Romania, or about the involvement of the Israeli citizens Tal Silberstein, Beny Steinmetz, Moshe Agavi and other people in the restitution proceedings. DNA prosecutors also claim that the Senate’s Speaker made false statements and he didn’t tell everything he knows about the relation he had with Tal Silberstein, Dan Andronic and Remus Truica, and he said nothing about the talks with Truica related to the notary fees for the transaction with the lands in Snagov and the way of obtaining and capitalizing the claimed goods.
