The mayor of Timisoara, Nicolae Robu, will go on trial with eight other officials on charges that they undersold 207 state-owned properties to people not entitled to buy them over a 20-year period.
Prosecutors say the unlawful sales caused the state damages of more than 9.5 million euros.
Robu immediately denied wrongdoing.
Most of the buildings were properties in question were seized by the communists when they came to power in 1947 and are located in the historic center of Timisoara, in southwest Romania.
Prosecutors said that from September 1996 to January 2014, the city hall employees illegally sold 207 properties that belonged to the municipality to people who were not entitled to buy them, causing losses of 42.76 million lei, about 9.5 million euros.
The properties in question were confiscated by the communists. A law that was passed in 1996 allowed people who had been renting the properties to but them from the state. However, the 207 properties in question were sold to people who didn’t fulfil the legal conditions to buy them.
Anti-corruption prosecutors have charged the nine with official misconduct and unlawfully acquiring proceeds for themselves and others.
Robu, of the governing Liberal Party, who’s been Timisoara mayor since 2012, is charged over two contracts, while the director of public transport Constantin Miut is charged in connection with 199 fraudulent contracts. Former Timisoara mayor Gheorghe Ciuhandru, mayor from 1996 to 2012, and another city hall official are charged over 61 dubious contracts.
Robu strenously denied wrongdoing, saying as mayor he had signed off on contracts, but had not profited from illegal property deals. „I am ultra honest, 100% dedicated to the public interest,” he said on his Facebook page.
Two deputy mayors and four other city hall employees are also charged. No date was given for the trial.
The claimant is the Romanian state represented by the finance ministry which has asked for the properties to be returned to the state and for the contracts to be annulled.
