site.bta Chief Prosecutor of Romania's National Anti-corruption Directorate Kovesi Presents Her Country's Experience in Sofia

Chief Prosecutor of Romania's National Anti-corruption Directorate Kovesi Presents Her Country's Experience in Sofia

Sofia, March 16 (BTA) - In the past year, more than 800 people holding senior posts, including ministers, MPs, magistrates and mayors, have received final verdicts for corruption, Chief Prosecutor of Romania's National Anti-corruption Directorate Laura Kovesi said here Thursday, speaking at a conference about Romania's experience in fighting corruption. The event was organized by the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation.

Kovesi said that until the creation of the National Anti-corruption Directorate, the corruption lawsuits in Romania were mainly against doctors or teachers.

She noted that at the background of the high number of guilty verdicts, last year the court returned only four cases to the Directorate.

Kovesi said that the work of the Directorate is criticized a lot but that she does not think that its prosecutors are too aggressive. She stressed that prosecutors' breaking the rules is out of the question as they are directly controlled by the court. "We collect the evidence, the other decisions are made by the court," she said.

Supreme Court of Cassation President Lozan Panov spoke about "judicial lenience" in respect of high-level corruption in this country. Panov said that "unlike Laura Kovesi, he did not have the Bulgarian Klaus Iohannis behind his back". Panov recalled that when the two neighbouring countries joined the EU, Bulgaria was ahead of Romania, but this is no longer the case. In his words, the change in Romania happened with the creation of the Anti-corruption Directorate.