Victor Ponta says he would face court as Romanian MPs uphold immunity
Prime minister says he has proof he is innocent of charges of money laundering and tax evasion while president calls for his resignation
Victor Ponta, Romania’s prime minister, said on Tuesday that he was prepared to go to court to answer charges of money-laundering, forgery and tax evasion as the country’s president called on him resign.
Prosecutors announced on Friday that they had launched an investigation into the prime minister over suspected money laundering and tax evasion, sending one of the EU’s poorest countries into a political crisis.
Ponta denies the allegations and says he has documentary proof of his innocence. In an interview with the Guardian, he rejected a renewed demand by Klaus Iohannis, Romania’s president, for him to resign, saying that neither Romania nor Europe could afford political instability in the face of Russian expansionist moves to the East.
“Romania is in the most sensitive area of Europe,” Ponta said. “We hope we will close this small but intense political crisis and we will get back to work, because Europe requires Romania to be stable and predictable in this region. I think only Russia will open the champagne bottles if Romania will be in long political crisis.”
Ponta was speaking in his office minutes after the country’s senate voted by a large majority against lifting his immunity to criminal investigation, drawing a stinging rebuke from the president and the prospect of a constitutional stand-off.
“I regret that has parliament has turned into a shield for the protection of an individual, Victor Ponta, who is suspected of criminal acts,” Iohannis said in a written statement. “It is conclusive proof of huge irresponsibility and defiance towards the public, because the majority MPs are obstructing justice and will destroy the parliament as an institution, harming the image of Romania, in order to save one person.”
The president added: “I furthermore consider the key to getting out of this situation is the resignation of Mr Victor Ponta as prime minister.”
Ponta, the leader of the majority Social Democratic party, rejected the president’s demand for his resignation as politically motivated, intended to rally support for the Liberals in elections due next year.
“I’m sure that president Iohannis will simply do his job and his statements were simply statements to support his party who are in opposition and who want to win elections next year,” Ponta said. “But the president should be the president of all citizens not just of his party.”
The parliamentary vote to maintain the prime minister’s immunity only protects Ponta against some of the potential charges raised on Friday by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) – specifically those alleging conflict of interest while he has been in office. It does not apply to DNA allegations that Ponta was involved in money-laundering, forgery and tax evasion in 2007 and 2008 when he was working as a private lawyer. According to a statement issued on Friday by the agency, he is said to have falsified invoices for work he never performed to help a business associate dodge tax.
“I am still being investigated … and I will answer to all the prosecutor’s questions regarding the allegation that eight years ago as a lawyer I was accomplice to another lawyer for a €10,000 tax evasion. I will go in front of the prosecutor and if it’s going to be the case, in front of a judge as an absolutely normal citizen,” he said.
Ponta vowed that, if he was found guilty on those charges, he would resign.
“If I am declared guilty by a judge, of course. That’s absolutely clear,” he said. But he added that he could prove his innocence in court, and had not yet been asked to give his version of events.
“I did have all the checks by the fiscal authorities and the national integrity agency and both said everything was perfectly legal so I will just present all these papers to the prosecutor. I will give all the explanations, and I’m sure everything will be clear then.”
The DNA confirmed that it was still pursuing the investigations into Ponta’s role in the tax evasion case. That case will be passed to an investigating magistrate who will decide whether it should go to court.
Meanwhile, Ponta said he stuck by his earlier call for the law to be changed to lift the immunity of MPs in cases of corruption. That did not apply to him, he insisted, as the allegations against him while prime minister involved alleged conflict of interest rather than corruption.
He also said he did not support legislative changes being considered in parliament to limit the power of state prosecutors, arguing that judicial self-policing was the answer to occasional over-zealous prosecutions.
“I don’t think the problem is the legislation,” he said. “I just think we should find a mechanism that avoids abuses and mistakes.”
Laura Stefan, an anti-corruption expert at the Expert Forum, a Bucharest thinktank, expressed scepticism over Ponta’s claims he was not behind the legislative push to curtail the DNA’s powers.
“He is the leader of the ruling party pushing for the changes. So how can he be against them when his party is pushing for them – he just showed us all how he holds his party with a very strong grip,” she said.
• This article was amended on 11 June 2015. An earlier version described President Klaus Iohannis as the leader of the opposition National Liberal party. Alina Gorghiu took over that post in December 2014.
