The FINANCIAL — A decision on jailing Romanian ex-premier Adrian Nastase, who shot himself Wednesday after being handed a two-year prison sentence, was delayed Monday when doctors asked for forensic experts' opinion.
Nastase, 62, tried to commit suicide when two policemen came to his house to escort him to prison following a Supreme Court ruling that threw out his appeal against a corruption conviction.
According to EUbusiness, his condition was considered as stable Thursday, after he underwent surgery in a Bucarest emergency hospital.
On Monday the surgeons refused to say if he was fit to be transferred to a prison hospital, asking instead for forensic experts to decide.
They also declined to give details about Nastase's condition and the nature of the injuries he sustained.
This fuelled a controversy on the still unclear circumstances of the suicide attempt and on the preferential treatment Interior Minister Ioan Rus allegedly gave Nastase.
Rus admitted he had called the former prime minister after the court ruling in order to negotiate the terms of his transfer to prison.
Meanwhile, Nastase's lawyers said they were trying to obtain either a three-month delay in their client's imprisonment or a new trial, on grounds related to the statute of limitations.
Nastase, who headed a Social Democrat government between 2000 and 2004, was convicted for siphoning off funds totalling about 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) for his 2004 re-election campaign.
He is the highest Romanian official to be sentenced to prison since the toppling of the communist regime in December 1989.
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