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Former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, officially accused in the Tel Drum file
The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) announced on Friday that it has started criminal arraignments against former chairman of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) Liviu Dragnea in the Tel Drum case, for committing the crimes of constituting an organized crime group, two counts of abuse of office with obtainment of undue gains for himself or others, instigation to the crime of using or presenting in bad faith false, inexact or incomplete documents or statements, if the crime has as a result the undue obtainment of European funds, in the form of improper participation.
The damages done to the state budget are 31,343,799 RON, sum that constitutes an undue benefit for the winning company SC Tel Drum SA.
Furthermore, DNA announced that in the case the arraignment of other persons was also disposed. Said persons were, at the time of committing the crimes, civil servants in the Teleorman County Council and administrators/representatives of the company Tel Drum SA and other companies. The crimes they are accused of are constituting an organized crime group, using or presenting in bad faith false, inexact or incomplete documents or statements, if the crime has a result the undue obtainment of European funds, complicity to abuse of office and tax evasion.
Former leader of the Social Democratic Party, Liviu Dragnea, serving a sentence of 3 years and a half in prison in the Teleorman fictitious hiring file, has been brought to the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) Friday morning, to be officially informed he is not a suspect anymore in the Tel Drum file, but a defendant. Romanian prosecutors are investigating charges of EU funds embezzlement in the Tel Drum file, following a complaint filed by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
However, Dragnea reported in court the denial by the European Commission to probe into the investigation carried out by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in the Tel Drum file. Dragnea sued the European Commission in the attempt to obtain the annulment of the OLAF report, which determined there was EU funds embezzlement in the Tel Drum file.
The hearing at the DNA comes one day after Liviu Dragnea had granted his first interview from jail to his former adviser Anca Alexandrescu, currently journalist at Realitatea TV. In the interview, the ex-SocDem leader has reiterated that he is innocent and that it is a conspiracy against him to be used in the upcoming electoral campaign.
“I am summoned at DNA in the Tel Drum file tomorrow (editor note: Friday), which is set in motion again, all of a sudden, after 3 years, shortly before the electoral campaign (…) I really don’t know what are the charges against me in this file, to be honest (…) Practically, I am being charged that, during my mandate (e.n: as Teleorman county council leader) two major roads had been built for that county (…),” Dragnea told his former adviser.
“The strategy is clear, of course I will be used, I even told Irina (e.n: Irina Tanase, his lover) that sometime in the summer they will come up with something against me, potentially in the Tel Drum file”, he added.
Established 20 years ago as the construction company of the Teleorman County Council, Tel Drum was privatized in early 2000s, when Liviu Dragnea was leading the County Council.
Investigators say that Dragnea would have never stopped controlling Tel Drum, through middlemen. Tel Drum has lured tens of millions of euro, money from the state budget or from EU funds and has won most of the public tenders it has participated in.
Even after Dragnea’s imprisonment and after the company had been placed in insolvency over the charge of EU funds embezzlement, tel Drum kept on being granted contracts with the state.