UPDATE – Liviu Dragnea announced that he resigned the position of Minister of Regional Development and Public Administration and Monday at the meeting of the PSD Standing Bureau he will submit his mandate as executive president of the party, following the court's decision convicting him in the "Referendum " case.
"I consider myself innocent" and "do not understand the court’s motivation of today’s decision ", Liviu Dragnea said.
Dragnea has said he does not know how can elections be held if turnout is considered by court as undue advantage and appreciated that the court's decision in his case represents a dangerous precedent that could affect democracy and parties freedom to urge people to come to vote.
"It may occur in the collective mind, the impression that going to vote may be a bad, wrong or reprehensible thing," Dragnea added.
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The Minister of Development and Administration, Liviu Dragnea, was sentenced to one year of probation in the case of fraud in the 2012 referendum. The decision Friday by the Supreme Court is not final and can be appealed to the panel of five judges of the Supreme Court.
The court ordered the execution of Liviu Dragnea sentence be suspended for a probation period of three years.
The same decision acquitted another 20 defendants.
Besides Liviu Dragnea, another 70 people were prosecuted for the 2012 referendum and nearly 300 people were called as witnesses, many of them elderly or ill.
Prosecutors asked for the sentencing of Liviu Dragnea to a sentenced to be served. But he said he hoped to be acquitted, because there isn’t serious evidence against him. Dragnea is accused that as head of the PSD campaign, he used his influence to obtain the validation of the referendum.
According to the indictment of prosecutors, Liviu Dragnea, "on the organization and conduct of the referendum of 29 July 2012, has used his influence and authority in the party in order to obtain election patrimonial advantages , for the political alliance that included the party represented by defendant, to achieve the participation quorum of votes obtained by means other than the legal conditions ".
Investigators argue that Dragnea was supported by 74 presidents and members of polling stations in Teleorman, Vrancea, Olt and Gorj in order to fraud the referendum. They were prosecuted for forgery, by any means, from the electoral documents and ballot-box stuffing an additional number of ballots than voters voted, the other crimes committed were authorship, complicity or instigation.
Adrian Ursu: I think it is a case abusively put together
"I think it is a case abusively put together. Not necessarily in what regards Liviu Dragnea, but in terms of all the action, the referendum moment. Because huge accusations were made there, they formulated preposterous assessments . We remember that they spoke about a 1.5 to 2,000,000 votes rigged. These numbers were rolled by all, they were announced by Monica Macovei, "said Adrian Ursu, in a telephone intervention on Antena 3..