The Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided to forward to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate the criminal complaint filed by George Simion against Nicolae Ciucă, the PNL president, for embezzlement of public funds.
DNA investigates George Simion’s complaint against Nicolae Ciucă PHOTO: Archive
The announcement was made by AUR through a press release.
“The prosecutor’s office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided to forward to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate the criminal complaint filed by the president of the AUR, George Simion, on August 8, against Nicolae Ciucă, the president of the PNL, for embezzlement of public funds, through illegal use of the subsidy for public purposes”, according to a press release.
According to the quoted source, the section for combating crimes assimilated to corruption crimes within the DNA “will have to rule on the legality of the use of money from the public subsidy by the National Liberal Party to promote an autobiographical book by Nicolae Ciucă, still unwritten”.
“In this way, we reiterate the fact that we expect the prosecutors from the DNA to do their job and go to the sums embezzled from Romanians’ money. We are talking about an amount of over two million euros”the statement also states.
The campaign to promote candidate Nicolae Ciucă – “A soldier in the service of the country” – has cost 2 million euros so far, an amount that will double in November. The amount was paid by the PNL from public money, for the 400 billboards promoting the autobiographical book of the party president, according to Snoop.ro.
Moreover, according to the cited investigation, the party paid another 450,000 euros of public money for the production and installation of the panels, so that the total expenses have already reached two million euros and are estimated to reach four million euros by November.
PNL specified, in an official response to Snoop.ro, that the publicity of the book “A soldier in the service of the country”which entered its fourth month, costs 510,000 euros per month, including the rent for advertising exposure, VAT and local taxes.
The production and mounting of the panels promoting Nicolae Ciucă’s book cost another 450,000 euros, also public money. In all, it has already cost 2 million euros and the amount will increase to 4 million by November.
“We made a reservation, we can consider that the panels did not cost anything and we paid for them strictly in the electoral area, and, for the rest, we occupied them with something else. We took the billboards for the election campaign, otherwise we could put anything on them. If you send to a company, Euromedia, Exclusiv Media, the ones that own 14,000 – 20,000 panels, if you ask them to give you October – November, you will see that the price has exploded. We made a hill that took a year’s time”, explained the first vice-president of the PNL, Rareș Bogdan.
