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The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) asked the courts, in 2021, to place Elena Udrea under judicial control, with a ban on leaving the country, but the judges of two courts denied the request.
On Thursday, Elena Udrea was placed on a watch list by the Romanian Police, after she was not found at her home in Corbeanca. The police was supposed to pick her up from home to take her to the penitentiary, where she has to serve six years in prison in the "Gala Bute" case.
Last year, the DNA prosecutors tried not to repeat the 2018 episode, when Udrea fled Romania so as not to be taken to prison, but judges of two courts refused to ban her from leaving the country.
Thus, on March 5, 2021, the prosecutors asked the Bucharest Court of Appeal to place Elena Udrea under judicial control, with a ban on leaving the country, given that she had been sentenced two days before to 8 years in prison with execution for committing the crimes of incitement to bribery and money laundering in the case regarding the financing of Traian Basescu's electoral campaign in the 2009 presidential elections.
"The defendant showed an intention to evade the trial. She said in her statements that justice is not independent and that the decision to condemn her was absurd and that someone else was pulling the strings, from behind the curtain. Also, the defendant already has a history. In 2018 he evaded another conviction and fled to Costa Rica, where she was arrested and subjected to extradition proceedings. (...) Considering this history, of course that we decided to keep the defendant at the disposal of the judicial entities. For she did not return to the country on her own will. She mentioned the Italian judicial system, because several people who were condemned in Romania fled there: Alina Bica, Dragos Savulescu, Daniel Dragomir, Marian Zlotea," the prosecutors argued in front of the judges.
But the prosecutors' request got rejected by both the Bucharest Court of Appeal and the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
At that time, Udrea gave assurances that she would not run away from Romania, claiming that she had a child in her care, but she cursed the judge who convicted her in the case of the funding of the campaign of Traian Basescu.
"I curse her children to feel what my child feels (...) How can you give 8 years for this? Did I kill someone? If we sentence murderers and rapists to 5-7 years, how can we still sentence people to 8 years in prison for corruption? (...) Where else can I go? Italy has changed the law, it no longer considers the execution of punishments received in another country," Udrea stated in March 2021, Agerpres informs.
