Prosecutors questioned yesterday ZIUA director Sorin Rosca Stanescu about certain press articles on the National Office to Fight and Prevent Money Laundry (the ONPCSB). Prosecutors refused to ask him for one more statement, after Rosca Stanescu mentioned that journalists had certain duties related to confidentiality. On the other hand, when prosecutors proceed to inquiry they must ask if the source providing information or documents agreed to be unveiled or not.
In a ZIUA article titled "Police-like state" the authors showed that the ONPCSB received thousands complaints about banking transactions and operations with sums larger than 10,000 Euro. The ZIUA journalist mentioned that for fear it should miss something, the ONPCSB was in the habit of violating citizens' privacy, even if there was no money laundry suspicion on them. At that time ZIUA also published a list of people whose bank accounts had been checked on, although there were no clues pointing to crimes.
Sorin Rosca Stanescu sent a letter to the Romanian Press Club reminding about the obligation to protect the confidentiality of information sources. You can read it in today's newspaper. (B.C.G.)