Laura Codruța Kövesi
| Laura Codruța Kövesi
| |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 May 1973 Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania |
| Nationality | Romanian |
| Occupation | Prosecutor |
| Known for | Head of the DNA, 2013–18; first European Chief Prosecutor; target of the Black Cube operation, 2016 |
Laura Codruța Kövesi (née Lascu, born 15 May 1973) is a Romanian prosecutor. She headed the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) from 2013 until she was dismissed on 9 July 2018, and in October 2019 became the first European Chief Prosecutor, in charge of the European Public Prosecutor's Office. In 2016, while she was running the DNA, Black Cube ran an operation against her. In 2022 Dan Zorella, Avi Yanus and Gal Farchi took suspended sentences in Bucharest over that job.[1][2]
Career
She was born in Sfântu Gheorghe. Her father was a prosecutor. She played basketball for Mediaș and Sibiu and for the junior national side, which finished second at the 1989 European under-16 championship. She studied law at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj from 1991 to 1995, and took a doctorate at the West University of Timișoara in 2012, on organised crime. She married Eduard Kövesi in 2002 and kept the name after the divorce in 2007. At 33 she was Romania’s youngest prosecutor-general, and the first woman in the post. In 2013 she took the DNA. Under her the directorate prosecuted senior political figures. A poll cited by the Guardian put trust in the DNA at 60 per cent and trust in parliament at 11. She told the paper that the first thing she heard, on saying she wanted to be a prosecutor, was that the office was not for women.[1]
Justice minister Tudorel Toader ordered her dismissal on 9 July 2018. President Klaus Iohannis at first refused. The Constitutional Court held that he could check the legality of the order and not the reasons, and he signed. On 5 May 2020 the European Court of Human Rights held that the dismissal had breached her right to a fair hearing and her right to free expression. In October 2019 she was chosen over the French magistrate Jean-François Bohnert as the first European Chief Prosecutor. The office investigates crimes against the EU budget.[1]
The 2016 operation
While she headed the DNA she was running a large inquiry into senior figures. In 2016 Black Cube targeted her. Two operatives were arrested in Bucharest before the job was finished. Dan Zorella later told Israeli investigators, who were working with the Romanian inquiry, that he had instructed the pair to hack her email in the hope of finding compromising material. They were detained before they reached her own account. One of them, Ron Weiner, admitted illegally accessing the email accounts of people close to her.[3][4]
In March 2022 a Bucharest court, after a plea and in the absence of the three, gave Zorella, Avi Yanus and Gal Farchi suspended sentences of two years and eleven months for creating an organised crime group to intimidate her. Prosecutors said the job was commissioned by Daniel Dragomir, a former Romanian intelligence officer who blamed Kövesi's directorate for his own prosecution. The founders said they believed they were working for the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). Who paid has not been established; a separate DIICOT file on financing remained open as of March 2022.[2][4][5]
See also
- Black Cube
- Black Cube in Romania
- Daniel Dragomir
- Dan Zorella
- Avi Yanus
- European Public Prosecutor's Office
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Jennifer Rankin, ‘The law is equal for everyone’: Laura Codruța Kövesi, Guardian, 3 August 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 3 Israelis from Black Cube intel firm given suspended sentence in Romania, Times of Israel, 21 March 2022.
- ↑ Decizie în dosarul "Black Cube": Ron Weiner, condamnat definitiv la doi ani şi opt luni de închisoare cu suspendare (Ruling in the "Black Cube" case: Ron Weiner given a final sentence of two years and eight months, suspended), Observator, 26 January 2017.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Alex Costache, Şefii Black Cube, condamnați la câte 2 ani și 11 luni de detenție cu suspendare în dosarul spionării fostei şefe DNA, Laura Codruţa Kovesi (Black Cube bosses each given 2 years 11 months suspended in the case of spying on former DNA chief Laura Codruța Kövesi), G4Media, 20 March 2022.
- ↑ Inside the shadowy world of the ‘private Mossad’, Daily Telegraph, 21 March 2024.