Basescu Daughter Faces Graft Charge in Romania

Romania's former development minister Elena Udrea, the daughter of former president Traian Basescu, Ioana, and other officials and heads of state-owned companies will stand trial for the illegal funding of the presidential electoral campaign in 2009.

Prosecutors from the National Anti-corruption Directorate, the DNA, announced on Tuesday that Udrea had been indicted with abetting bribery and money laundering, while Ioana Basescu, a public notary, faces charges of abetting embezzlement and money laundering. 

Other state officials, including a former general secretary of the Ministry of Development and Tourism, Gheorge Nastasia, have been charged with bribery and embezzlement.

The DNA has also charged the journalist and former political consultant Dan Andronic, the owner of the Evenimentul Zilei daily, with perjury and aiding and abetting a perpetrator.

The indictment says that before and during the 2009 presidential campaign, Udrea, Traian Basescu's campaign manager, and Basescu's daughter, Ioana, illegally gathered funds from bribes, tax evasion and embezzlement.

Udrea coordinated the campaign acquisitions, the prosecutors say. The illegal payments were cloaked as fake state contracts with companies that in reality were involved in Basescu's presidential campaign.

They provided street advertising, posters, masked advertisements in print media, websites, media monitoring services, entertainment shows and consultancy.

The DNA says that in October and November 2009, Udrea, then Minister for Development and Tourism, had Nastasia, secretary general of the ministry, solicit a 200,000-euro bribe from a company that had a contract with the government.

In exchange, the ministry promised to expedite payment of 50 million euros...