A five-judge panel of the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected former tourism minister Elena Udrea’s request for a review of the 6-year prison sentence she received in the ‘Gala Bute’ case.

The decision was taken by the majority of judges. There were also two judges with separate opinions on this decision, in the sense of admitting the request for review and sending the case for retrial. In this case, the panel adjourned the case seven times.

Elena Udrea is currently serving the sentence in Targusor Penitentiary, where she was jailed in June 2022, after being extradited from Bulgaria.

The path of this trial has been rather complicated. Udrea was indicted in 2015 and finally convicted in June 2018, but she fled before the sentencing and was tracked down and imprisoned in Costa Rica.

Subsequently, in December 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law was not respected when the five-judge panels of this court were constituted. As a consequence, the sentences in the „Gala Bute” case were suspended, Udrea was released from custody in Costa Rica and she returned to Romania.

In April 2022, based on a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal for annulment filed by Elena Udrea and confirmed her six-year prison sentence. Elena Udrea fled to Bulgaria, but was caught and sent back to the country, where she was imprisoned in June 2022.

In this case, Elena Udrea is accused of coordinating a system whereby people close to her received, with her knowledge, sums of money from representatives of commercial companies to guarantee them timely payment of works financed by the Ministry of Tourism, which she headed.

The investigators say that the amounts obtained entered either directly into the possession of Elena Udrea (in cash or by payment of goods and services), or of the Bucharest Organization of the PDL or of the former head of the Romanian Boxing Federation, Rudel Obreja.

Udrea is also accused of having induced officials from the Ministry of Tourism to violate their duties in connection with the purchase of advertising services for the gala where Lucian Bute boxed.

The damage imputed to Elena Udrea amounts to 3 million EUR, which has not yet been recovered by the Romanian state.

AGERPRES