WHAT DELICACY IS THE NATIONAL ANTICORRUPTION DEPARTMENT HAVING FOR LUNCH... The appetizer - Sorin Alexandrescu. Could the main course be Dan Voiculescu?

Sorin Alexandres-cu, the general manager of Antena TV Group, was placed on preventive arrest for twenty nine days, at the end of last week, following a ruling of the judges of the 1st district of Bucharest, upon the proposal of the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Department, which is indicting him in case of blackmail against cable company RCS/RDS, which also involves the president of the Professional Football League, Dumitru Dragomir.

The scandal of the detainment and arrest of the general manager of Antena 1 has started off lots of talk, given the political and business connections of the owner of Antena TV, Dan Voiculescu.

Some people claim that the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) was not habilitated to investigate Sorin Alexandrescu for blackmail, because the DNA is not habilitated by law to investigate this type of cases.

"If the DNA also handles blackmail offenses, then what is the General Prosecutor's Office left with?", political sources told us.

Perhaps blackmail is part of the "et. al" mentioned at the end of the document that describes the attributions of the DNA, but that would mean it can handle anything else (see box).

If that is the case, that that also means that "the blackmail conducted by Sorin Alexandrescu" actually represents one "medium or major corruption act", because those are what the DNA deals with.

Another possibility, of course, is that aside from the blackmail, the case also contains facts which for one reason or another are not being made public.

Lawyer Gheorghe Piperea said: "Simple blackmail is not a corruption crime. The National Anticorruption Department is expanding its attributions without any regulation which allows it to do so. From what I've learned, a negotiation took place between the two, who are both operating in the private sector, and we all know that sometimes negotiations can get a little rough. I think however that the National Anticorruption Department is preparing a major operation, because blackmail is only considered to be an act of corruption if it is conducted against a civil clerk or dignitary".

Our sources told us that the real target of this scandal is actually the owner of Antena TV, Dan Voiculescu, who is being accused of misappropriation of European funds through the Dan Voiculescu Foundation.

Dan Voiculescu himself wrote on his blog that Sorin Alexandrescu is being investigated by an institution which is not habilitated to deal with this case. "Sorin Alexandrescu does not have a function that would make him a target for the DNA, and no material losses have taken place in the case", the owner of Antena TV added, who also said: "The people who are using the Alexandrescu case for petty press quarrels, are the naïve tools of an oppression system which has already proved that it can violate the freely expressed will of 87% of Romanians. In such a system, the civil rights of every citizen can be violated at any time. Even the rights of those who today short-sightedly continue their personal war with Voiculescu. I am always here, they can quarrel with me all they want, but this time, it's not about me, rather it's about them".

In this statement by Mr. Dan Voiculescu, we can admire the way he conducts his statistical calculations - if there were only 15 million of the "Romanians" that he is speaking about, then that would mean that 13 million Romanians would have to have voted in the Referendum he is alluding to, to reach that "87%" which he mentions, rather than just 7.5 millions citizens, which is the number announced by the authorities.

• Sereş - the key man?

Codruţ Sereş, "the right hand man of Dan Voiculescu", resigned from the management of the Intact group on April 19th, 2013, in other words four days after the prosecutors began wiretapping the calls of Sorin Alexandrescu in the RCS brief.

One year ago, journalist Stelian Negrea accused the management of the Intact group, namely its general manager Codruţ Sereş, of coming in to the editorial meetings and indicating the companies and politicians to be attacked in the TV shows of Antena TV.

Codruţ Sereş is the godson of Sebastian Ghiţă, the owner of România TV, and according to the information which appeared in the mass-media at the end of April, he is negotiating for a position at România TV.

Between 2005-2006, when Sereş was in charge of the Ministry of the Economy, the Asesoft group, owned by Ghiţă obtained several contracts with the companies controlled by the Ministry, according to information in the press.

The fierce struggle between Antena TV - Dan Voiculescu and România TV owned by Sebastian Ghiţă is well known.

Even though Dan Voiculescu prohibited Sereş from having any ties with Ghiţă during the time the former worked at Intact, there are rumors about a visible friendship between the two.

In a transcription published in the press in 2010, (but which was recorded in 2006), Sereş was telling Ghiţă about Dan Voiculescu: "The < < professor > > is crazy and has a screw loose".

It is possible that Sereş negotiated his exit from Intact in exchange for information about his former owner...