DNA retorts to news on interim head-US ambassador meeting: „Misleading information”

The National Anti-corruption Directorate has retorted in a press release on Monday to the „misleading information” around the meeting between the interim head Anca Jurma, the US Ambassador to Romania, Hans Klemm and the FBI attache.

The anti-corruption body says that a TV channel has incorrectly broadcast information according to which the DNA acting chief prosecutor Anca Jurma has been „summoned” to the US Embassy.

„Considering that a series of incorrect information havE been released in the public space during several days regarding the meeting that the DNA chief prosecutor Anca Jurma had with ambassador Hans Klemm and FBI attache David Varner on July 17, 2018, the DNA’s Press and Publice Relations Bureau makes the following clarifications: The meeting took place at the US Embassy’s initiative, at the DNA’s headquarters, in the view of introducing Mr. David Varner, the new FBI attache in Bucharest (after his predecessor ended his term), an attache whose activity is carried out within the embassy.

The DNA’s cooperation with similar institution in other states and with diplomatic missions falls within the competences stipulated by the law and by DNA’s rules of procedures (…)

As for the cooperation of the Prosecutor’s Office upon the High Court of Cassation and Justice with the FBI, it is expressly mentioned in the Protocol signed for the Romania-USA Treaty on September 10, 2007 on judicial assistance on criminal matters, ratified by Romania through the Law 112/2008.

Considering that a TV channel has tendentiously reported on July 17, 2018 the fact that DNA chief prosecutor, Mrs. Anca Jurma, would have gone to the US Embassy, inducing viewers the idea that she had been „summoned” at the embassy’s HQ, we have asked for a right to reply.

That news, subsequently broadcast by other publications as well, is a false one, and before broadcasting it, the representatives of that television have not run a minimal check to report a correct and unbiased information,” reads the DNA release.