The Bucharest court convicted Romanian union leader Marius Petcu (in picture) to seven years in prison for taking bribes. The decision can be further appealed in court. Petcu will not be able to exercise his civil rights for ten further years after getting out of jail.

Petcu says he has been set up, and was prevented from showing evidence in court, solely because he is a union leader.

In March this year, Petcu, the president of the Sanitas Federation in Romania was detained for 24 hours on charges of bribery, with a proposal for a 29-day preventive arrest. Petcu was caught taking a bribe of EUR 40,000 from a businessman. He told the prosecutors that the money represented a loan that he gave to the businessman two months ago, according to his lawyer Alice Draghici. He was freed from arrest in June.

According to prosecutors, in 2009-2010 Marius Petcu, as president of the Sanitas Federation, received about EUR 20,000 every month to assign the businessman’s company a contract for work on an education center in Snagov. Investigators say that Marius Petcu also received a villa in the Predeal resort, worth about EUR 200,000 from the same company through an intermediary, at the beginning of February.

Marius Petcu is the highest-paid union leader, with a monthly salary of about EUR 10,000, according to his assets statement. Moreover, he has been eyed by the National Integrity Agency since the beginning of February, when the agency started checking several union leaders’ assets statements.

editor@romania-insider.com