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Presidency sent a press release yesterday informing: "President Traian Basescu is sorry for the inappropriate language ("stinky gypsy") used in a private conversation". Still the document doesn't make clear the crime the head of state committed.

The suspended President apologized to journalist Andreea Pana. Last Saturday he took her mobile phone. The information is included in the press release authored by Presidency spokesman Valeriu Turcan. What the President actually did was grab the journalist's phone and take it away. Had it been about some ordinary citizen, it would have been called theft. And no one is above the law, given the Constitution the President keeps on claiming he respects.

Here is the entire paragraph in the release from Presidency: "President Traian Basescu is sorry that inappropriate language used in a private conversation in the car he was driving has become public and groundlessly caused moral prejudice to Andreea Pana, a reporter for Antena 1 TV station. The President is kindly asking Mrs. Andreea Pana to accept his sincere apologizes for the incident. Under circumstances of full public and media pressure, the language used is not at all representative of Traian Basescu's attitude at the Roma community in our country. He respects its identity and appreciates its contribution to the democratic life of Romanian society."

Mediafax Agency informs that last Saturday, the referendum day, Traian Basescu and his wife went shopping in a supermarket in Bucharest. Journalists were watching the President, but as the filming in the shop was banned, the reporters stayed in the parking area.

Journalist Andreea Pana went in and filmed the President with her cell phone. Others Romanians in the supermarket did the same. The head of state wasn't irritated at first, as he even talked to the reporter. He seemed calm and relaxed. But when getting out, he was displeased with insisting questions and grabbed the phone from the journalist's hand, put in his pocket, still he didn't turn it off. This is why his talk to his wife about the journalist was recorded.

The protection staff presently checked the phone and the conversation was deleted from the phone memory, but not from the card memory. Afterwards it was returned to an Antena 1 team in the headquarters of the Democrat Party. Experts managed to save the film on the card. The President was recorded when calling the journalist "a stinky gypsy". (A.H.)