English• The leader of the National Liberal Party intends to sue Prime-Minister Boc and Iulian Iancu for slander
• Tăriceanu: "The entire story is an abject lie"
• Bădulescu: "I have no connection with the Tăriceanu-Patriciu pair or with Sterling"
• Iancu: "Tăriceanu is campaigning for elections within the NLP"
The two key people in the "Sterling" affair, former Prime Minister Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, and current State Secretary within the Ministry of the Environment, Doru Laurian Bădulescu, deny any involvement in the recent scandal concerning the assignment of the oil exploitations in the Black Sea.
Former Prime-Minister, and leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, is under suspicion that, while he was in office, he signed an addendum to the agreement with Sterling Resources which grants the company the right to extract hydrocarbon resources from the Black Sea, following the Hague Court"s ruling in favor of Romania. The former Prime-Minister summoned a press conference yesterday, and stated that "the entire story is an abject lie".
Having had enough of the accusations of his political rivals of PSD and PD-L, the former Prime-Minister announced that he would seek justice in court, because he feels he is the subject of slander and untrue statements made by Prime-Minister Emil Boc.
"I have decided to go to court, because I am not willing to let slide the lies of people who should be doing other things, and I"m referring to the State Secretary Iulian Iancu and Prime Minister Emil Boc", said Tăriceanu.
The chairman of the National Liberal Party said he would go to court in order to shed some light on this case, and out of respect for the courts he will only ask for symbolic compensations of one leu from his two accusers.
Tăriceanu said: "These people, Emil Boc and Iulian Iancu need to understand that in a state where the law rules, they have to mind what they say. Words are not something to be trifled with".
In turn, Social-Democrat Doru Laurian Bădulescu, the new secretary of state in the Boc Government yesterday said, in a right of rebuttal published in the media, in reply to the articles which say his appointment was conditioned by his granting Sterling Resources the environment permits needed for the exploitation of the oil deposits in question, that he has absolutely no connection to the company.
Bădulescu says that the ties the press are trying to draw between him and the "Tăriceanu-Patriciu pair" are nothing more than speculation.
"I have no connections to them whatsoever", says Bădulescu, who claims, in his rebuttal, that he had no knowledge of the contents of the ordinance issued by the office of Prime Minister Tăriceanu at the end of its mandate.
The State Secretary said: "I have no connections to Sterling, I"ve never met anyone from that company, they"ve never contacted me either directly or indirectly. These allegations that I"ve been appointed as State Secretary for the Ministry of the Environment
On the other hand, one of Tăriceanu"s accusers, the Chairman of the Industry and Services Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Social-Democrat Iulian Iancu, asked the former Prime-Minister Tăriceanu to come up with credible explanations on why the Romanian state lost the right to take over the oil production which was assigned to Rompetrol in 1990.
After hearing about Tăriceanu"s intention to sue him, Iancu said that he wants the former Prime-Minister to give credible explanations as to why the former liberal government approved a government ordinance that changed the right to take over production into a right of concession.
The PSD deputy called Tăriceanu"s action as pointless and having electoral purposes, referring to the upcoming elections of the National Liberal Party (PNL).
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