Romania's top prosecutor quits
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-07-22 11:51
Romania hopes to join the European Union next year, and its failure to tackle
high-level graft has been a serious problem in EU membership negotiations.
Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, cameraman Sorin Miscoci and Romania
Libera newspaper journalist Ovidiu Ohanesian were kidnapped in Baghdad on March
28, 2005.
Hayssam was arrested in Romania soon after the kidnapping and prosecutors
charged him and Mohamad Munaf, the journalists' guide in Iraq and Hayssam's
business partner, with organising the kidnapping to help Hayssam escape
organised crime charges.
Romanian media speculated that Hayssam hoped prosecutors would drop charges
against him when he presented himself as a go-between and would let him go to
Iraq, pay the kidnappers a ransom and bring back the journalists.
Hayssam's alleged plan went wrong and the journalists ended up in the hands
of a more militant group which threatened to kill them unless Romania pulled its
800 troops out of Iraq.
The journalists were rescued after 55 days, and Basescu praised the secret
services' handling of the crisis.
Hayssam underwent surgery for colon cancer while awaiting trial, and a local
court let him leave a prison hospital in April this year and recover at home. He
failed to show up for trial hearings and this week a court ordered him to be put
behind bars again pending trial. He then went missing.
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