Premium
A Bucharest Court judge on Tuesday night denied anti-graft prosecutors' request for a 30-day preventive arrest of Romarm Director Gabriel Tutu and Alexandru Piturca, the son of Victor Piturca, in a case of purchases of non-compliant protective masks for the Ministry of Defence, told Agerpres.
The magistrate ordered that the two be placed under court supervision, with several bans.
The decision is not final and can be challenged by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA).
Alexandru Piturca was detained for 24 hours on Tuesday, being accused of buying influence, while Tutu also spent a day in the custody of the Bucharest Police.
In the same case, Victor Piturca, a former coach of the national football team was also detained and prosecuted for buying influence.
The anti-corruption prosecutors maintain that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, between March 19, 2020 and September 16, 2021, Romarm general manager Gabriel Tutu, acting in violation of the legal provisions, concluded two public procurement contracts with an association of companies that also included one controlled by Piturca; the highly disadvantageous contracts for Romarm provided for the purchase of seven non-compliant machines for the production of protective masks.
"The aforementioned actions caused National Company Romarm SA a loss of 8,647,584 RON, representing the value of the mentioned machines, the value of the raw material and subsequently the value of related parts and services (outside the contract)," the investigators argue.
In a similar context, the prosecutors maintain that between March 19, 2020 and April 10, 2020, Gabriel Tutu asked executives of the companies involved in the said purchases to allow a friend of his to provide for delivery non-compliant protective masks to the National Defence Ministry although he actually did not provide any real commercial activities ancillary to the contract for the delivery of protection products and to perform payments to the latter (40 percent of the profit share) under the guise of a consultancy contract.
"In exchange for these 'services', suspect Gabriel Tutu induced the belief that he has influence over Defence Ministry officials and that he will determine them to directly award the procurement contracts without public procedures, and also take over the products without raising any objections and foot the relevant invoices. In this context, suspect Gabriel Tutu is said to have received 50,000 RON through a go-between," prosecutors mention.
DNA also alleges that Alexandru Piturca would have accepted, directly, the terms and conditions requested by Tutu, in exchange for which the latter would have made believe that he had influence over defence officials and that he would induce them to award directly and without public procedures contracts for the supply of safety products against the coronavirus.
