David Ciceo, the general manager of the Avram Iancu International Airport in Cluj-Napoca, will stand trial for bribery, as the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) sent him to court alongside local businessman Ioan Bene.

Ciceo allegedly received a building worth RON 690,000 (EUR 153,000) from Bene to allow him to continue work at the airport, illegally. Local publication Actual de Cluj reports that the businessman allegedly gave David Ciceo a villa in a local residential complex as bribe.

Prosecutors say that, in 2011, the Cluj County Council and the Cluj-Napoca International Airport began a project that targeted the development of the airport's infrastructure. The investment project was split into three stages, as the financial effort for its development was a big one.

In September 2011, the Cluj-Napoca Airport concluded a contract with an association of companies, which also included the company managed by Ioan Bene. Under this contract, the companies were to execute the first stage of the project. However, after the work was completed, Ioan Bene agreed with David Ciceo and another person from Cluj Couny Council to also carry out some of the work included in the project’s second stage, namely to build an aircraft parking platform, work that was actually completed in March 2014, according to DNA.

“This was done without any legal forms, and no transparent evaluation and granting of such works that are funded with public money, by ignoring the principles of competition and transparency,” reads a statement from DNA.

In this context, in October 2012, David Ciceo received from Ioan Bene a building located in Cluj-Napoca, for which his parents had allegedly paid RON 690,000. In return, Ciceo directed money from the Airport to the company managed by Bene, to pay for the construction of the aircraft parking platform.

The prosecutors seized the building allegedly offered as bribe.

The Avram Iancu International Airport in Cluj-Napoca is the second-biggest airport in Romania. Some 1.9 million passenger transited the airport in 2016, 25% more than in 2015.

Cluj airport gets permits for expansion and modernization

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com