JusMin Toader says Drago Kos not head of OECD's anti-corruption body

Justice Minister Tudorel Toader presented on Wednesday his correspondence with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that shows Drago Kos is not the head of the OSCE anti-corruption body, and the latter's statements would have not been made on behalf of the organisation.

"From my correspondence with OECD: Drago Kos is not the head of the anti-corruption body of the OECD. Drago Kos is the president of the International Trade Trading Group. Drago Kos did not speak on behalf of OECD!," Toader said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

He also quotes a response from the organisation in which OECD disengages from the way in which Drago Kos's statements have been reflected in the Romanian media.

"We cannot comment on the way in which Mr Kos's views were reflected in the press in Romania," Toader says, quoting from the OECD response.

On June 4, Toader said that he sent a letter to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) demanding to know whether recent controversial statements by head of the OECD anti-corruption watchdog Drago Kos on a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) regarding the head of Romania's National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) were made on behalf of the organisation.

"Are they threats from OECD or internal manipulation? On Monday morning, I will address OECD to demand it to formally communicate whether Mr Drago Kos's statements were made in his own name or on behalf of OECD, as the title of a story carried by Ziare.com alludes (...) An article published on June 1 states that, on behalf of OECD, Mr Drago Kos made a series of statements of great gravity on the Romanian Constitutional Court. At the same time, the same publication quotes the same sources, also on behalf of the OECD, as claiming that your justice Minister will soon learn in a tough way that he is seriously mistaken," according to another of Toader's Facebook posts. AGERPRES (RO - author: Mihai Stoica; EN - author: Corneliu Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)