Voiculescu shows up in court for consideration of his request to switch jurisdiction over ICA case

Founding chairman of the Conservative Party (PC) Dan Voiculescu on Friday showed up at the Supreme Court of Justice, where judges were to consider a request filed by him for a switch in the jurisdiction over the privatisation of the Food Research Institute (ICA) from the Bucharest Court of Appeal to another court.

Initially, the Supreme Court had set September 24 as the date to consider the request, but the date was moved in the end upon the requests of Voiculescu's lawyers.

The lawyers had filed a petition with the Supreme Court calling for the case involving the privatisation of ICA to be switched from the jurisdiction of the Bucharest Court of Appeal to the jurisdiction of another court.

The petition came as at July 1 hearings, the lawyers complained about the attitude of the chair of the new judge panel Camelia Bogdan, whom they accused of bias and attempted twice to have her removed from the case.

The Bucharest Court of Appeal set at August 4 the next hearings in the ICA case.

PC founding chairman Dan Voiculescu was sent to court in 2008 by prosecutors of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) as a majority shareholder in the Grivco Voiculescu and Co. Industrial Group SA Bucharest, as a member of the General Shareholders' Meeting and the Administration Board of Bioprod SA of Bucharest.

The prosecutors accused him of having used in his official capacity as a decision maker of a party his office influence and authority to gain, for self or others, money, assets or other ill-gotten gains, as well as of money laundering, both in a continual form. AGERPRES