ROMANIA: Seres Investigated Separately in Energy Privatization File

Prosecutors with the Department for investigating organised crime and terrorism offences (DIICOT) will inquire the former Economy minister, Codut Seres, separately from the other four persons under criminal proceedings in connection with the strategic privatisations file, Nine o' Clock reports.

Prosecutors concluded the investigations and are to bring a court action against two foreign consultants, Stamen Stancev and Vadim Benyatov, but also against Dorinel Mucea and Radu Donciu, representatives of the Economy Ministry and the Communications Ministry respectively.

The four are charged with espionage, and treason respectively. Prosecutors are carrying on their investigations into Codrut Seres. Another state official involved with the file, Communications Minister Zsolt Nagy, is yet to be summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office, despite President Traian Basescu having given his green light for criminal proceedings to begin in this case, as asked by the prosecutor’s office.

Prosecutors at the High Court of Appeals suspect former minister Codrut Seres and Minister Zsolt Nagy of 'contributing' to the deeds with which ministerial counsellors Dorinel Mucea and Mihai Donciu and consultants Stamen Stancev and Vadim Benyatov are charged with. DIICOT prosecutor ordered late last year that criminal proceedings be opened against the accused' international consultant Stamen Stancev, Dorinel Mucea – the deputy head of the Office of State Shareholdings and Privatisation in Industry (OPSPI) at the Ministry of Economy and Trade and Mihai Radu Donciu – a counsellor with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, with duties in the field of privatisation of economic operators subordinated to the said ministry.

The special Commission set up by the presidency last December to look into notifications over the dossier of privatisations in the energy sector no longer took action in Seres’s case, after the Conservative Party (PC), exited government and he resigned from his position as minister.

Source: Nine o'Clock