[ad_1]
In the first instance, the Bucharest verdict acquitted former Secretary of State for Minority Affairs Attila Markó in another claim for compensation in which the politician was suspected of abuse of office.
The verdict was published on the website of the Romanian courts on Friday. According to this in the absence of a criminal offense All defendants in the case have been acquitted, including Attila Markó, but the defendants’ assets remain under lock and key.
Attila Markó was a member of the committee of the Romanian restitution authority, which is responsible for awarding damages in the case of real estate confiscated during communism. The Romanian anti-corruption prosecutor’s office has filed several lawsuits against panel members; the present is now the second in which the acquittal was rendered.
The last time Attila Markó was acquitted in a similar case was in October last year, when the Supreme Court ruled in this way after the Bucharest panel sentenced the former Secretary of State for Minorities to another five years in prison. The adjudication panel is also hearing another similar case in the first instance, in which a sentence can also be handed down on October 30.
In the current lawsuit, members of the restitution commission have been accused of voting for 128 million euros in damages to businessman Horia Simu for a property, although prosecutors say it actually cost 58 million, damaging the state by 70 million. of euros.
The board members made these decisions based on the report of official appraisers. In a ruling last October, the Supreme Court ruled that board members could not be held responsible for any inaccuracies in the content of a formal assessment.
Attila Markó, who currently lives in Hungary, told the Maszol Cluj-Napoca news portal on Friday that the members of the restitution committee cannot be held criminally liable because the amount calculated by an appraiser had been approved as outside the profession. Since last year’s acquittal, he learned that the anti-corruption prosecution still wanted to prosecute committee members in dozens of similar cases, but in light of the final verdict, the charge had already been dropped at the prosecutor’s level.
Attila Markó applied for and received asylum in Hungary after being sentenced to a suspended prison term in 2014 for contributing to the restitution of ecclesiastical property in Sepsiszentgyörgy, the building of Mikó Székely College, as a member of another restitution body.
[ad_2]
