Romanian court postpones verdict in leader's corruption trial
Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea is accused of keeping two women on the payroll of a state agency in 2006-2013 even though they were employed by his party. He was a county council chief at the time.
Social Democratic Party leader Liviu Dragnea gestures during an interview with Reuters, in Bucharest, Romania, May 23, 2018.
Romania's top court postponed on Friday a verdict in the trial in which the leader of the ruling Social Democrats stands accused of inciting other public servants to commit abuse of office, saying it needed more time to process details.
A fresh criminal conviction for Liviu Dragnea, who is already barred from becoming prime minister because of a previous conviction for vote-rigging, could weaken his grip on the country's biggest party and the five-month old government.
Dragnea is accused of keeping two women on the payroll of a state agency in 2006-2013 even though they were employed by his party. He was a county council chief at the time.
Dragnea denies the charges.
The court said on Friday it will make a preliminary ruling on June 21. A final verdict may take months, analysts say.
Arguments about how to fight corruption in one of Europe's most graft-prone states have dominated Romania's politics since it joined the European Union just over a decade ago.
Adrian Basaraba, a political science professor at the University of Timisoara, said a second criminal conviction for Dragnea could prompt Social Democrat rivals to move against him.
"We may see some internal wars in the party ... a fresh conviction would be a wonderful opportunity for some to say the current PSD leader has eroded his legitimacy too much to govern the biggest party," he added.
In this Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 file photo, Romania's chief anti-corruption prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi, who heads the country's anti-graft agency (DNA), right, stands next to Romanian President Klaus Iohhanis, before the presentation of the unit's annual report to senior judges, prosecutors and magistrates, in Bucharest, Romania.
Dragnea is also under investigation in Brazil on suspicion of money laundering, and in a separate case in Romania on suspicion of forming a "criminal group" to siphon off cash from state projects, some of them funded by the European Union.
But the former regional development minister, who created a funding programme for local infrastructure projects that has disbursed billions of euros since 2013 with limited government oversight, has the support of powerful provincial leaders.
At the start of 2017, attempts by Dragnea's coalition government to weaken anti-corruption legislation triggered the country's biggest protests in decades.
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