A panel of five judges from the High Court of Cassation and Justice rejected on Thursday the request filed by Elena Udrea regarding the review of the 6-year prison sentence she received in the Gala Bute case.
The decision was made by a majority of the judges. There were also two judges with dissenting opinions regarding this decision, in favor of granting the review request and sending the case for retrial. In this case, the panel postponed the pronouncement seven times.
Lia Savonea, the magistrate who recently overturned Mario Iorgulescu's 13 years and 8 months sentence, acquitted former Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, and referred the "Revolution File" in which Ion Iliescu is indicted back to the Prosecutor's Office, was part of the judging panel.
Another judge in the panel is Mihail Udroiu, a former advisor to Alina Bica at DIICOT. Elena Udrea and Alina Bica fled to Costa Rica in 2018 to avoid convictions.
Elena Udrea is currently in Târgșor Penitentiary, where she was incarcerated in June 2022 after being extradited from Bulgaria.
The course of this process has been quite complicated. Udrea was indicted in 2015 and finally sentenced in June 2018, but she fled before the sentence was pronounced, only to be apprehended and incarcerated in Costa Rica.
Later, in December 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law was not respected when the panels of five judges at this court were constituted. As a result, the convictions in the Gala Bute case were suspended, Udrea was released from custody in Costa Rica, and returned to Romania.
In April 2022, based on a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Supreme Court rejected an annulment appeal filed by Elena Udrea and confirmed the six-year prison sentence. Elena Udrea fled to Bulgaria, but was caught and sent back to the country, being incarcerated in June 2022.
In this case, Elena Udrea is accused of coordinating a system through which individuals close to her received, with her knowledge, sums of money from representatives of commercial companies to ensure timely payment for works funded by the Ministry of Tourism, which she led.
Investigators say that the obtained sums either directly entered Elena Udrea's assets (in cash or through the payment of goods and services) or those of the Bucharest branch of the PDL Organization or former President of the Romanian Boxing Federation, Rudel Obreja.
Udrea is also accused of causing officials from the Ministry of Tourism to breach their duties during the acquisition of advertising services at the gala where Lucian Bute boxed.
The damages attributed to Elena Udrea amount to three million euros, a sum that has not yet been recovered by the Romanian state.