Victor Babiuc and Becali have been sentenced to prison

The owner of the football club Steaua Bucharest, Gigi Becali, former minister of defense Victor Babiuc and the former chief of the General Army Staff Dumitru Cioflină have been convicted by the five-judge panel of the Supreme Romanian court to 2 years in prison each in the "Land Plots Trade" affair, as well as received restrictions of their civil rights for a five-year period. As to what concerns the former daughter of the minister of Defense, Ioan Babiuc, the court has reaffirmed the acquittal ruled by the three judges of the trial court. As for Becali, who had previously been sentenced to three years in prison with suspension in the case in which he forcibly confined several people, the court revoked the suspension of the enforcement of the punishment. The judges have also reindividualized the ruling by which Becali was convicted to three years in prison and have merged it with his two years of sentence from the ruling of the brief concerning the exchange of plots of land. After the cummulation of the two sentences, Becali is going to serve the biggest sentence, namely three years of prison with enforcement, of which the court has ruled that the period of April 2nd - April 17th, 2009, in which the businessman was detained and preventively arrested for his actions in the case of "forcible confinement". The rulings are definitive and irrevocable. The properties of Gigi Becali have also been seized. Him, Dumitru Cioflină and Victor Babiuc are required to pay 892,758 dollars in damages.

Gigi Becali will lose his tenure as a deputy. Shocked upon hearing the news, he shut himself in his office in the Parliament, refusing to make any further statements to the press, even though throughout the day he had appeared several times on all the news stations. After taking some time to compose himself, he exited his office and talked to the reporters, visibly shaken: "I have talked to my family to encourage them. I want to ask the prosecutors to show a minimum of decency and to wait for me to turn myself in, and not to put on a show and to bring masked troopers to my house, so that people all over the country have to put up with that kind of circus. I have to protect my family, I will challenge the ruling at the ECHR, which means that in the end it will have negative repercussions on Romania. I wasn't expecting such a mockery of a ruling for a deal involving plots of land which was done 16 years ago. My biggest regret is that I didn't remain a member of the European parliament, because if I had this never would have happened".

The prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Department have requested that Gigi Becali and the other defendants be sentenced to jail, whereas their defenders argued that, given the evidence of the prosecutors and the legal status of the two plots of land concerned, their clients should be acquitted of the charges brought against them by the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Department (DNA).

Gigi Becali, former defense Minister of Defense Victor Babiuc, his daughter Ioana, and Dumitru Cioflină were acquitted on May 24th 2012, by the supreme court in the case of the exchange of plots of land Becali concluded with the National Ministry of Defense, as the prosecutors challenged the ruling in the second appeal. The court ruled to acquit the four defendants claiming that one of the elements of the offense was not present. George Becali was acquitted for the offenses of abuse in office against the public interests in aggravated and ongoing form, Victor Babiuc and his daughter for taking bribes and complicity in taking bribes, respectively, and abuse of office for Dumitru Cioflină. The ruling was challenged with a second appeal filed to panel of five judges of the Supreme Court, which will render a definitive ruling in that case. According to the prosecutors, between 1996-1999, as manager of the plots of land of the public property of the state located in the Voluntari area (the former Roşia farm), the Ministry of National Defense has conducted two exchanges of plots of land with George Becali, with a total surface of 28.89 hectares of arable land within the city perimeter, exchanges which resulted in a loss of 892,758 dollars for the Romanian state.

A few hours before finding out the ruling, Gigi Becali had a new tense moment. Becali was stopped by the policemen on Sunday night, on the "Henri Coandă", airport, where he wanted to leave the country, and was taken to the Prosecutors' Office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, as he was investigated for fraud and abuse of office in a new case. The policemen have enforced the order to the offender issued by the prosecutors on the name of Gigi Becali, who was taken to the prosecutors' office of the supreme court to be told that he is prohibited from leaving the country. Gigi Becali is being investigated for fraud and abuse of office in a case concerning Avicola Iaşi.