Radu Mazare

Romania is exploring ways to extradite high-profile former officials who are on trial for corruption and seeking political asylum in Costa Rica or Madagascar - which have not signed extradition treaties with Bucharest.

Romanian prosecutors are set to start the extradition procedure for a former mayor sentenced for graft who skipped his police check-in on December 30 and left instead for Madagascar.

The Bucharest Appeal Court was set to issue a sentence on Friday in Romania's longest-ever corruption trial that has lasted nine years and counted over 100 hearings. But the court postponed the decision until May 31.

Romania's Supreme Court on Thursday jailed super-rich businessman Ioan Niculae for two years and six months for illegaly financing one of the main candidates in the 2009 presidential campaign.