ECHR condemned Romania to pay almost 200,000-euro compensations over prison conditions in 2014

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Find out how many inmates inhabit Romanian prisons.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned the Romanian state to pay 196,400-euro compensations over prison conditions last year. The National Administration of Penitentiaries (ANP) informed that “overcrowding is still a major challenge of the Romanian penitentiary system”, with an 11,170-seat deficit.

ANP officials themselves admitted that the Romanian penitentiary system couldn’t comply with the European legislation, which stipulates that each inmate has the right to have a four-square-meter living space.

Romania has been convicted in 29 cases over penitentiaries’ conditions last year, with a slight decrease compared to 2013 when there were 32 such cases and 221,819 euro-compensations to pay.

Yet, the scarcity of prison seats and other infrastructure problems are far from being settled. No later than Tuesday, ECHR admitted the complains over scarce prison conditions made by the former Cluj Napoca Mayor, Sorin Apostu, who is currently serving a prison sentence. Apostu filed a complaint claiming bad insanitary conditions while he was placed under preventive arrest at the Cluj County Police Station in 2011. The former mayor said he had been sharing the cell with more inmates, he had no natural light and there was lack of heating and proper hygiene. Apostu also claimed that, during the preventive arrest period after he was transferred to Gherla Penitentiary, he could not talk properly with his lawyer, but only through a small window. The former mayor of Cluj-Napoca city also complained that his right to private life has been breached, as prosecutors who were in charge of his case had disclosed tapping that came under his private life and had no connections with the corruption file.

Sorin Apostu got a final ruling in July last year in his corruption case, receiving four years in jail for taking bribe from businessman Calin Stoia. He was also sentenced to three years and six months in prison for complicity to money laundering and other eight months for paper forgery.

Over 7,750 criminals, attackers and robbers in Romanian prisons

Over 7,750 criminals, attackers and robbers inhabited Romanian prisons in December 2014, a balance sheet report of the National Penitentiaries Administrations reveal. There were also 2.060 rapists, 1,473 drug dealers, while most of the Romanian inmates were serving jail sentences for theft and other crimes against the patrimony.

At the same time, 309 persons were incarcerated for corruption, 1,098 for driving misdemeanors. Other 48 prisoners had sentences related to e-commerce and only two for terrorism.

161 inmates were serving life sentences, 2,593 were imprisoned for more than 15 years, while 10,075 have to serve 5 to 15 years time.

216 of the prisons in Romania are foreigners- 35 Turkish citizens, 26 from Republic of Moldova, 18 Bulgarians, 11 Hungarians, nine Germans, nine Syrians and four stateless persons.

 

 

 

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