Sebastian Ghiță
Sebastian Ghiță | |
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Born | Sebastian Aurelian Ghiță November 10, 1978 Ploiești, Romania |
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Years active | 2010 ongoing |
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Sebastian Aurelian Ghiță is a Romanian media entrepreneur and politician (PRU, formerly PSD). Ghiță owns the country's largest[citation needed] news channel Romania TV and was also a member of the Romanian Parliament.
Life[]
Ghiță started his career as a IT developer. He was offering business support in high school. He founded the software and tech group Asesoft. By 2010, Ghiță's assets had tripled to €120 Million, mostly because of tenders or no bid contracts with the Romanian state. Just in the summer of 2010, his holding group, Asesoft received €55 Million in Romanian state contracts.[1] Also in 2010 Ghiță was becoming the manager for Romania's largest news station at the time, Romania TV.[1] Ghiță initially owned the majority of the TV station Romania TV and still holds the majority stake in it through middlemen.[2][3]
According to Romanian sources Ghiță financed almost all the important parties in Romania: the Social Democratic PSD, the Partidul Democrat Liberal, Partidul National Liberal and the Partidul Conservator.[4]
Ghiță was elected to the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for the social democratic PSD in 2012.[2] Romania's National Anti-Corruption Agency, DNA, accused him of bribery and money laundering in 2015. He fled to Serbia.[5] DNA sued Ghiță because of bribing the former Mayor of Ploiești, Iulian Badescu.[5]
Ghiță was arrested in Serbia in April 2017. He was released from the Belgrade police arrest in May 2017 after he had paid €200,000 as bail. He is not allowed to leave Belgrade and must go to the police twice a month. Ghiță told the Serbian judges that he did not agree to the extradition request filed by the Romanian Justice Ministry, arguing that the request "is politically persecuted".[5]
The nationalist United Romania Party (PRU) in Romania nominated Ghiță as their candidate for the 2019 European Parliament elections. Ghiță was applying for political asylum in Serbia. The Supreme Court of Serbia found him politically persecuted and granted him asylum. The arrest warrant for Ghiță was then disposed in early March 2019. In the same month, the Court of Appeal in Ploiești withdrew the Romanian extradition request to Serbia.[6]
References[]
- ^ a b RomaniaCorruptionWatch (2017-07-18). "Sebastian Ghiță — The Missing in Action Media Mogul". Romania Corruption Watch. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
- ^ a b "Schwartzenberg: Acțiunea la "Răitaru' TV" face parte din procesul recuperării sculelor Realitatea TV". Mediafax.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved 2022-01-25.
- ^ "România TV își modifică din nou acționariatul: managerul Catrinel Gheorghe va deveni proprietar". Mediafax.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved 2022-01-25.
- ^ "SEBASTIAN GHITA". Rise Project. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
- ^ a b c "Romania: DNA requests 10 years in prison for Sebastian Ghita – Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative". Retrieved 2022-01-25.
- ^ "Auslieferungsantrag für Sebastian Ghiță zurückgezogen". adz.ro. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
- 1978 births
- People from Ploiești
- Social Democratic Party (Romania) politicians
- Romanian television personalities
- Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Romania)
- Fugitives wanted by Romania
- Romanian expatriates in Serbia
- Living people