Romanian PM facing graft trial

Romania’s Prime Minister Victor Ponta is be tried for corruption, anti-graft prosecutors said on Thursday -- the first head of the country’s government ever to be put in the dock while still in office.
The 42-year-old Social Democratic leader, who denies the charges, has been accused of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering dating back to 2007, five years before he became prime minister.
Ponta -- once Europe’s youngest national leader -- was taking part in a special meeting of the country’s defence council on the migrant crisis hitting the EU when prosecutors from the DNA anti-corruption agency made the announcement.
The agency said some of his assets have been frozen pending the outcome of the case when they charged him on Monday.
The embattled premier had earlier that day hobbled on crutches through a crowd of reporters into the DNA headquarters in Bucharest to face prosecutors over the graft probe that was opened against him in June.
Sources said he had refused to answer their questions.
The investigation has sparked calls for Ponta to resign, but he has refused to do go, firmly denying the allegations and promising to cooperate with the probe.
After returning to his prime ministerial duties last week after a month-long stay in Turkey for a knee operation, Ponta said on Sunday he was stepping down as head of the centre-left Social Democrat Party while he fought the corruption allegations.
Prosecutors also suspect Ponta -- a keen rally driver and navigator -- of conflict of interest during his time as premier. But that probe was stymied when parliament, where Ponta’s party has a comfortable majority, refused last month to lift his immunity from prosecution.
The centre-left prime minister’s legal troubles have prompted a fresh crisis in the European Union’s second poorest nation, with the opposition and Ponta’s arch rival, President Klaus Iohannis -- who he lost a bitter presidential election to last year -- calling for him to step down. The money laundering and tax evasion allegations relate to his activities as a lawyer.
Ponta is accused of receiving the equivalent of around 55,000 euros ($61,000) from Dan Sova, a political ally and member of parliament suspected by prosecutors of abuse of power but who also enjoys immunity.
Sova was named a minister three times by Ponta before resigning in 2014.
Dozens of former politicians and judges have been swept up in investigations launched by the anti-corruption agency in one of Europe’s poorest and graft-plagued countries.
The mayor of the capital, Sorin Oprescu, was the latest to be taken into custody on Saturday night on suspicion of taking kickbacks on municipal tenders.