Romanian court: ex-health minister charged with taking 35,000 euros bribes can be freed from arrest during probe

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A Romanian court has ordered that former health minister Sorina Pintea, be released from detention while she is investigated on suspicion of taking 35,000 euros in bribes in exchange for a public procurement contract.

Pintea, who is manager of the Baia Mare Emergency Hospital, was detained last Saturday for 24 hours.  

She strenuously denies wrongdoing, her lawyer Viorel Mocanu said Friday. The Bucharest Court of Appeals ordered her release on Friday and placed restrictions on her movements during the probe.

The anti-corruption prosecutors’ agency said she was caught in a sting operation at the hospital a week ago. Prosecutors allegedly intercepted her as she took 120,000 lei in her office.

 Mocanu said the sting operation was illegal.

Anti-corruption prosecutors said Pintea is suspected of taking bribes of 10,000 euros and 120,000 lei (25,000 euros) in two installments from an intermediary from December 2019-February 2020.

The kickback represented 7% of the value of a contract for renovating a cardiovascular unit at the hospital, prosecutors said in a statement.

They said she is being investigated for “taking repeated bribes.”

Pintea, a Social Democrat, was health minister from January 2018 to October 2019.

Last year, she was accused of intimidating a non-governmental organization that raised 26 million euros for a pediatric cancer hospital. She said the funds that were raised over four years should be handed to the state.

When she was minister, Pintea sent a team of undercover detectives to Romanian hospitals last year to check out whether medics and nurses are demanding or accepting bribes.

LĂSAȚI UN MESAJ

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