Italian court rejects the extradition of PSD ‘baron’ Ionel Arsene, sentenced to 6 yrs in prison for corruption

Former Neamț PSD local leader Ionel Arsene, sentenced in March to six years and eight months in prison with execution in a corruption case and fled the country, remains in Italy, after a court in this country rejected the extradition request made by the authorities from Romania, according to Digi 24.

The former president of the Neamț County Council is the last on a long list of fugitive convicts, many of whom have found refuge in Italy and Greece.

The ruling pronounced by the Italian court is not final, being taken in the first instance.

On March 10, Ionel Arsene was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison with execution, in a corruption case. The decision is final and was pronounced by the Brașov Court of Appeal. Arsene reportedly left the country before the sentencing.

In this case, Ionel Arsene was sent to court by the DNA in 2018, being accused that during 2013, as a deputy and president of the PSD Neamț organization, he received from a person (witness in the case) the sum of 100,000 euros in order to use the influence some people in the management of the National Integrity Agency, in order to establish non-compliance with the legal provisions regarding the conflict of interests and the incompatibilities regime in the case of a person who, at that time time, he had a leadership position in the local administration.

The anti-corruption prosecutors claim that the money handed over by the witness in a restaurant in Bucharest should have reached the respective persons through intermediaries.