Update: Puiu Popoviciu – sentenced to 7 years in jail in Baneasa Farm file. The businessman has allegedly fled the country in June

Businessman Puiu Popoviciu, sentenced to 7 years in jail, was not found at his domicile by police. A national warrant was issued on Thursday. Police sources claim that Popoviciu has allegedly fled the country in June and Police will request the issuance of a European warrant on his name.

Popoviciu was not banned to leave the country until the sentence on Wednesday, hotnews.ro informs. Police sources say his last declared domicile was in Monaco.

Businessman Puiu Popoviciu was sentenced on Wednesday, by the High Court for Cassation and Justice (ICCJ – Supreme Court) to 7 years in jail, in the file in which he is accused of corruption deeds regarding the association between his company, SC Baneasa Investments SA and the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Bucharest (USAMV), for a plot of land of 224 hectares. The ruling is final.

Popoviciu was sentenced in the first court to 9 years in jail in the same file.

The former USAMV Rector Ioan Niculae Alecu was sentenced to six years in jail for abuse of office.

Stefan Diaconescu, scientific secretary and Rector of USAMV at the time of the deeds, was sentenced in the same file to 5 years in jail.

Also sentenced are Ilie Cornel Serban, former Director of the Information and Internal Protection Directorate with the Interior Ministry, to two years and six months in jail and Petru Daniel Pitcovici, former head of the Operational Division with the Anticorruption General Directorate, to two years in jail suspended sentence.

According to the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) prosecutors, during 2000-2004, Rector Ioan Niculae Alecu, supported by Popoviciu, based on a contract concluded, under unlawful conditions, made it possible that the 224 hectares plot of land, belonging to the public domain, to be included in the social capital of SC Baneasa Investments SA.

Firstly, Popoviciu and the Rector have concluded an unlawful joint venture contract, which involved SC Log Trans, later turned into Baneasa Investments.

The prosecutors say that, in order to enforce the deal, the Rector had misled the university senate, providing fake data and requesting the amendment of the University Charter. He had also claimed that wages will increase, the university will collect funds for the endowment of the unit for decent studying, that studios will be built to be rented to assistants, doctoral students.

Upon Rector Alecu’s request, Popoviciu promised him support to obtain the property title on the land of Baneasa and, thus, under unlawful conditions, during 2001, at the proposal of the Subcommittee on the Application of Law 1/2000 (Land Fund), the Bucharest committee issued the property title for USAMV Bucharest.

After the issuance of the property title, Ioan Alecu, in agreement with Popoviciu, included the ownership rights over 174 ha of land to the SC Baneasa social capital and the ownership rights on the buildings built on this land, although the USAMV Senate Decision prohibited this.

In this context, the land was undervalued, and later, in 2004, the difference to 224 hectares was also included in the company’s share capital, subject to under-valuation.

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