Călin Georgescu to stay in custody for another 30 days after the Bucharest Court of Appeal sides with prosecutors
The Bucharest Court of Appeal on Wednesday evening extended the pre-trial detention of former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu by 30 days, overturning a lower court that had ordered his release under judicial control. He is accused by prosecutors of defrauding a businessman of €1.1 million. The decision is final.
Romania's former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu will remain in pre-trial detention until 27 November, the Bucharest Court of Appeal decided on Wednesday evening, 28 October. The court upheld the appeal filed by DIICOT, the prosecutors' office for organised crime and terrorism, and extended the arrest of Georgescu and his co-defendant Ionel Rusen by 30 days, from 29 October to 27 November inclusive. It also rejected Georgescu's own challenge. The decision is final.
Georgescu was placed under arrest on 29 September in a case in which DIICOT accuses him of defrauding a businessman of about €1.1 million. Earlier this week the Bucharest Tribunal had refused to extend the arrest. Its judge wrote that there was still a "reasonable suspicion" that the two men committed the offences, but that the reasons for keeping them in custody "no longer exist", that neither had tried to escape the investigation or influence the evidence, and that they could be investigated under judicial control instead. Without a new ruling, the arrest would have expired at midnight on Wednesday.
The hearing at the Court of Appeal began at 17:00 after Georgescu was brought from detention, while his supporters gathered on the court steps from the morning despite bad weather, calling for his release. News of the extension came shortly after 20:00, first through sources quoted by Digi24 and then in the court's official ruling.
His wife, Cristela Georgescu, reacted on Facebook by calling him a "political prisoner". AUR leader George Simion, who had described him in the same terms, said after the ruling that "dictatorships never ended well". Georgescu denies wrongdoing.