Justice

Speaker of Romanian Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea was on Monday sentenced to three and half years imprisonment on corruption charges, in a final conviction by the country’s Supreme Court.

Dragnea, also leader of the main ruling Social Democratic Party, had filed an appeal in 2018 after the High Court of Cassation and Justice convicted him on charges of fictitious employment.

He was convicted after the anticorruption prosecutors proved that the  Speaker used his influence over ten years ago as President of the Teleorman County Council to employ two persons at the local child protection and social assistance directorate.

The two persons were employed by Dragnea even though he knew they were actually working for the local Social Democratic Party.

So far, neither Dragnea nor the Social Democratic Party have made any comment on the sentence.

Most political analysts believe that Dragnea’s corruption case has had a serious negative impact on the ruling party, as he tried to reverse the case and even considered to amend the relevant laws.

The Romanian opposition has been using this case to attack the ruling party, leading to a severe decline in the party’s popular support since the end of 2016 after the party’s overwhelming victory in the general election.

It was his second conviction after he received a two-year suspended sentence in April 2016 for voting fraud in a 2012 referendum to impeach then president Traian Basescu. (Xinhua/NAN)