20.03.2013

PRESS RELEASE

The Public Information and Press Relations Bureau within the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice is authorized to release the following information to the public:

Prosecutors within the Criminal Investigation and Forensic Section from the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice have ordered the commencement of a criminal prosecution procedure against the following defendants on account of conflict of interests:

- DRĂGHICI-MARIA SONIA (MP- deputy of the Romanian Parliament), establishing the factual situation that, acting as a Romanian MP, she proposed hiring her son in her parliamentary office and signed his employment contract for the following periods: 02 March 2009 – 15 September 2009 and 21 September 2009 - until the end of her term as MP.

- CINDREA IOAN (former deputy of the Romanian Parliament), establishing the factual situation that, acting as a Romanian MP, he proposed hiring his wife in his parliamentary office and signed her employment contract for the period 05 October 2009 – 01 February 2011.

Mention must be made that the commencement of criminal prosecution is a stage in the criminal proceedings that is regulated by the Criminal Procedure Code and whose purpose is to set up the proceedings framework for the administration of evidence, which under no circumstance can infringe the presumption of innocence principle.