First Romanian ex minister to go behind bars

The former Romanian agriculture minister Ioan Avram Mureşan will spend seven years behind bars for corruption after Romania's supreme court upheld a judgement without further appeal, thus ending legal proceedings that have gone on for eight years. Mureşan will be the first Romanian ex-minister to actually go to prison, the daily newspaper Gândul writes jubilantly: "The sentence sends a warning to other dignitaries who are either under investigation or already standing trial on charges of corruption. It is a signal to all those who still believe that with time they will be able to wriggle out of their responsibility and that the judiciary has forgotten them amongst the thousands of other pending cases. ... Clarifying the facts in major cases of corruption is difficult; the procedures are lengthy, and one of the parties in the dispute always has an interest in delaying judgement. ... But even the opponents of Daniel Morar [the boss of anti-corruption authority DNA] and [chief public prosecutor] Laura Codruţa Kövesi must see that the public prosecutors are industrious and are getting things moving in the complex legal system. Even if they work slowly - sometimes they deliver fitting judgements."

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