Romania’s anti-corruption unit said Wednesday the rector of the „Titu Maiorescu” University in Bucharest has been charged with blackmailing a colleague to try and get an exam fraud case dropped.
Anti-corruption prosecutors said Iosif Urs had threatened to publish ‘compromising’ material related to a teacher’s career which would trigger a disciplinary action against him.
The rector made the threat because he reportedly wanted to know who had instrumented a case of exam fraud in which he is facing charges.
The statement said that from March 10 to May 18 last year, Prof. Urs threatened to expose a member of the teaching staff for “a series of compromising deeds” connected to that person’s teaching activity.
He has not commented on the charges.
The person, identified as law professor Gabriel Ispas by G4Media, had allegedly abused his position to promote aides and relatives to teaching posts. The exposure of the alleged wrongdoing would lead to disciplinary action against him and his relatives.
In exchange for holding back, the teacher had to admit that he knew Iosif Urs would be investigated for exam fraud at the law faculty in June 2019 and to reveal who tipped off the prosecutor.
The teacher was also required to help him contact anyone in the legal system who could get the case closed.
If he failed to do this, the teacher was threatened with having his teaching contract suspended, the anti-corruption prosecutors’ unit said.
Iosif Urs is facing charges of handing out exam subjects to candidates before the exams. Another person has admitted wrongdoing. The rector and two others were briefly detained in 2019.
Prosecutors said the rector who is also the chairman of the university Administration Board would not be placed in custody during the current investigation.
