Romania's border.

Romania Probes Deputy PM Over Corruption Claims

September 23, 2017 Balkan Insight 0 Comments

By Ana Maria Touma

Romanian anti-graft prosecutors informed Deputy Prime Minister Sevil Shhaideh on Friday that she is a suspect in a corruption file.

Romania’s National Anti-Corruption Directorate, DNA, summoned Deputy Prime Minister Sevil Shhaideh for a hearing on Friday to inform her that she is a suspect in a graft case.

Shhaideh, who also heads the Ministry of Regional Development, told journalists she is not at liberty to disclose more information because the investigation is underway.

“I know my rights and I will discuss all the documents with my lawyer,” she added.

The Deputy Prime Minister in January 2017 was the governing Social Democratic Party’s first choice to lead the government, but her nomination was rejected by President Klaus Iohannis.

Anti-graft prosecutors have summoned other Social Democrat figures for investigations in the past two weeks, including two former prime ministers, Sorin Grindeanu and Victor Ponta, last week.

They said they were called in as witnesses and also refused to disclose any details about the cases.

A few days before the hearings, anti-graft prosecutors announced that they had opened an investigation into possible fraud over European Union funds committed by a road infrastructure constructor whose management is close to the Social Democrat leader, Liviu Dragnea. The prosecutors also raided the company’s headquarters.

Dragnea has denied any ties to the company.

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The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.

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