Elena Udrea finds out on Thursday if she will escape jail

The court hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 9 a.m., according to the court portal. Elena Udrea is one step away from conditional release after obtaining a favourable opinion from the Târgșor Penitentiary commission. If the court decides that Udrea can be released on parole, the former politician will be able to leave the penitentiary quickly.

The former minister was imprisoned in June 2022 after extradition from Bulgaria in connection with her conviction in the ‘Gala Bute’ case.

Udrea was indicted in 2015 and finally sentenced in June 2018, but left the country before the verdict was delivered. She was identified and arrested in Costa Rica, but in December 2018 she was released after a Constitutional Court ruling overturned convictions for failure to comply with the law when forming judicial panels.

In April 2022, on the basis of a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the High Court rejected an appeal for annulment and upheld the six-year sentence. Udrea fled to Bulgaria, from where she was extradited and imprisoned in Târgșor.

Udrea was indicted for coordinating a scheme whereby people close to her received money from companies to guarantee them prompt payment of contracts with the Ministry of Tourism.