EPPO Lead Candidate Officially Suspected Of Several Offenses, Requests Case Prosecutor’s Recusal

Kovesi spent approximately half an hour at the Supreme Court’s Section for Investigating Judicial Offences (SIIJ) on Friday, and told journalists while leaving that she was officially informed she was suspected of abuse of office, taking bribes and perjury.

The magistrate also announced that she requested the recusal of both case prosecutor Adina Florea and SIIJ chief prosecutor Gheorghe Stan, on basis of suspicions on the magistrates' impartiality.

Adina Florea was proposed multiple times by Justice Minister Tudorel Toader for Kovesi’s former office of National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) chief prosecutor, while Stan is a former deputy chief of the Judicial Inspectorate, which launched multiple disciplinary actions against the prosecutor in the past couple of years.

The former DNA chief accused harassment from the current political power, attributed to agency’s record of prosecuting high-profile businessmen and politicians for corruption offences while she was chief prosecutor.

“There is no coincidence (regarding the case, ed.). I have been harassed for two and a half years, I have four disciplinary actions and 18 criminal cases launched against me (…) Everyone who did their job is having problems and facing disciplinary actions. The Supreme Court chairman faces a disciplinary action, vocal CSM members are investigated on disciplinary issues, prosecutors and judges who criticized the judicial bills are also investigated,” Kovesi told journalists.

The magistrate said on Wednesday that the court order was issued after she informed the Supreme Court about the date on which she was initially supposed to attend a European Parliament hearing for the EPPO office. Kovesi is favored to lead the upcoming EU-wide agency, after she was announced on first in the order of the selection committee’s preferences on a three-prosecutor shortlist for the role.

Case prosecutor Adina Florea confirmed on Thursday that the subpoena was issued in regards to charges pressed by fugitive businessman Sebastian Ghita, who accused Kovesi last year of requesting him to pay for a flight used to repatriate another convicted businessman, Nicolae Popa, from Indonesia in 2011.

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