Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice sentenced transport minister Miron Mitrea to two years in prison, no parole, for corruption. The decision is final which means that he will actually serve time.

Mitrea is the ninth former Romanian minister who has got a final conviction for corruption, up until now. However, there are several former minister currently investigated or even under arrest in corruption cases.

Miron Mitrea, 58, was one of the most influential members of the Government when Adrian Nastase was Prime Minister, between 2000 and 2004.

A panel of five judges of the High Court rejected Mitrea’s appeal to a previous ruling of the same court that sentenced him to two years in jail. The judges kept the two-year jail sentence and also doubled the damages Mitrea has to pay to the state, to EUR 74,000.

In October 2014, the High Court found Miron Mitrea guilty of taking a RON 927,000 bribe (EUR 210,000 at today’s rate) back when he was minister. The bribe came from Irina Jianu, who paid Mitrea to keep her in the position of chief inspector of the State Inspectorate for Constructions, the institution responsible for certifying the quality of construction work in Romania.

She didn’t pay the money cash but funded some construction work done on Mitrea’s mother’s house. The court also sentenced Irina Jianu to five months in jail. Jianu had been previously convicted in several other corruption cases, including one in which former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase also served a prison sentence.

editor@romania-insider.com