The High Court for Cassation and Justice (ICCJ – Supreme Court) will give the final ruling on the file concerning PNL Chairman, Ludovic Orban, charged with influence peddling for obtaining undue benefits.
The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) prosecutor has requested a sentence of one year in jail for the above mentioned charges.
In the last hearings on Monday, Orban said he is innocent and he had not used political influence to obtain benefits.
“I consider I am innocent. I did not take advantage of my political position, I haven’t made the slightest mention to my position. I had no intention to benefit from illegal funding. I have confidence in the court,” Ludovic Orban said.
Early in 2017, the ICCJ magistrates acquitted Ludovic Orban, former candidate of the PNL for the Bucharest City Hall, in the file he is judged for using his influence to obtain undue benefits. Yet, the ruling was not final and the anti-corruption prosecutors have challenged it.
The acquittal decision was taken by the majority of the judge panel, with two judges agreeing on the acquittal, while a third judged saying that Orban should be sentenced to one year on probation.
Ludovic Orban, currently the chairman of PNL, was sent to court by the National Anti-corruption Directorate in May 2016, with prosecutors claiming that Orban allegedly got in touch with a businessman he knew on March 1, 2016 and asked him money to support his electoral campaign for the local elections in the summer of 2016. The businessman was Tiberiu Urdareanu.