Social democrat senator Mihail Popescu, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is also indicted in the case the prosecutors opened against current Chairman, Gen Eugen Badalan. Razvan Belciuganu, Alexandra Chivu Social democrat senator Mihail Popescu, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is also indicted in the case the prosecutors opened against current Chairman, Gen Eugen Badalan.
The anti-corruption prosecutors charged the two generals for having sealed with Tofan Group a contract exchanging 4,000 army vehicles for 6,000 tires. The contract was signed in June 2000, when Popescu was in office. He drafted the report which advised for striking the deal with Tofan Group, and the minister of defense Sorin Frunzaverde, a member of the Democrat Party, now again a member of the ruling coalition, signed it.
The Defense Ministry own division for audit issued a report stating that Frunzaverde "was mislead into believing that Tofan was the only distributor of tires in Romania and that indeed 4,000 vehicles would be exchanged for 6,000 tires."
The audit division presented its report to the anti-corruption division, itemizing all the clauses of the contract which put the Defense Ministry at disadvantage.
In spite of this report, the contract went ahead both during Popescuâs and Badalanâs leadership of the Romanian military.
The anticorruption prosecutors started their own investigation and asked current defense minister, National Liberal Party member, Teodor Atanasiu, to present the conclusions of an internal investigation conducted by the newly founded fraud prevention division in the ministry.
The internal administrative investigation produced a 91-page long report, appended by 1,300 others.
Col Constantin Tene, heading the internal investigation unit, told Jurnalul National daily that the Tofan contract was se