Former SIS officer accused of illegally tapping phones

The Prosecutor General's Office (PG) completed the investigations over the second legal case started against a former division head of the Security and Information Service (SIS), who is accused of wiretapping. The case was sent to court, Info-Prim Neo reports. The suspended SIS officer is accused of ordering listening to the telephone conversations of a SIS colonel in May-August 2009, in the absence of a court authorization. In that period, the victim worked as consultant with the Moldovan Embassy in Romania. In the first case that was remitted to court on October 22, the prosecutors accuse the former SIS officer of ordering taping the phones of one former and four current officers of the SIS in November 2008 – September 2009. At the PG's request, the lieutenant colonel was suspended from post. The former SIS officer is also suspected of taking part in the tapping of political leaders' phones. The PG is now examining the given cases. Late last year, the PG sent to court a case opened against employees of the Ministry of the Interior over violation of the right to secrecy of telephone conversations, misconduct in office, abuse of power and forging of public documents. According to the prosecutors, there were tapped the phones of nine persons, including Veaceslav Untila and Serafim Urecheanu, who were then MPs.