Ionu\u021b Mircea Costea, brother-in-law to former presidential candidate and NATO second in command Mircea Geoan\u0103, was handed over to Romanian authorities on Tuesday, June 24, after being extradited by Turkey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Costea was the director of Romania’s Eximbank and is the brother of Mircea Geoan\u0103\u2019s wife. He has a six-year prison sentence for bribery.<\/p>\n
He “is being brought to national territory by officers of the Romanian Police and will be incarcerated in a unit under the authority of the National Administration of Penitentiaries,\u201d the Ministry of Justice stated on Tuesday morning on in a post on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n On May 26, 2023, Ionu\u021b\u00a0Mircea Costea was sentenced by the High Court of Cassation and Justice to six years in prison, after previously receiving seven years during the trial, in the corruption case regarding the rehabilitation of several railway sections.\u00a0Costea was also ordered to pay RON 3.1 million (EUR 614,000) and EUR 1.9 million.<\/p>\n Also convicted to seven years and four months in prison in the same case was former finance minister Sebastian Vl\u0103descu, while former member of parliament Cristian Boureanu was acquitted.<\/p>\n While Sebastian Vl\u0103descu turned himself in to the Police and was taken to prison, Mircea Costea was put on the wanted list by the Police. At that time, his brother-in-law, Mircea Geoan\u0103, who was then Deputy Secretary General of NATO, said that justice must be served without exception.<\/p>\n \u201cEach of us is responsible for the decisions we make. Mihaela and I will continue to stand by our grandchildren and offer them the support they need during these hard times,\u201d Mircea Geoan\u0103 said, according to HotNews.ro<\/a>.<\/p>\n After his conviction, Costea was put on an international wanted list in mid-2023. He was then located in Turkey in January, and on January 26, the Bucharest Tribunal decided that the conditions for requesting extradition were met.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the time, justice minister Alina Gorghiu said that as soon as the Bucharest Tribunal\u2019s ruling was communicated, the Ministry of Justice would file the extradition request for the former Eximbank president. Costea was detained by Turkish police in February, the following month.<\/p>\n