Final ruling: Sorin Ovidiu Vântu released from jail on parole

On Wednesday Ilfov Court ruled to release businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vântu on parole. He was serving a two-year jail sentence for favoring Nicolae Popa, sentenced in FNI file. Initially, District 4 Court had rejected Vântu’s request to be released on parole, but Ilfov Court accepted his appeal.

Vântu has unsuccessfully asked for probation on May this year, arguing he had already served two thirds of the sentence, he had constantly involved in educational activities in prison, had written a paper and helped the investigators reporting former boxer Rudel Obreja to the National Anti-corruption Direction.

Vântu was also prosecuted in FNI file on October 2010, when he was charged he would have sent money to ex-Gelsor director, Nicolae Popa, who was hiding in Indonesia. Prosecutors claim Vântu sent Popa EUR 50,000 and EUR 20,000 during October 2009-January 2010 to escape the European bench warrant issued on his name. Nicolae Popa had been sentenced to 15 years of prison in the huge National Investments Fund (FNI) file, a scandal that has shaken Romanian society in 2000 when about 318,000 people lost their savings because they invested them in the controversial ‘pyramid scheme’ fund.