The FINANCIAL -- Romanian ex-prime
minister Adrian Nastase was undergoing an operation on Thursday after he
tried to kill himself when a court rejected his appeal of a two-year
jail sentence for corruption.
Doctors at a Bucharest hospital were operating on Nastase a day after he shot himself in the throat, medical sources said.
The 61-year-old shot himself when two policemen came to his house to escort him to prison following a Supreme Court ruling that threw out his appeal against a corruption conviction.
He asked to be allowed to get some books, left the room and seconds later shot himself and was rushed to hospital, according to reports.
According to EUbusiness, earlier Wednesday, the country's highest court rejected his appeal against a jail sentence in a graft trial closely monitored by the European Union.
Nastase, 61, who headed a Social Democrat government between 2000 and 2004, was convicted for siphoning off funds totalling about 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) for his 2004 reelection campaign.
Prosecutors said public institutions and private companies were pressured into taking part in a 2004 construction contest with participation fees passing through several accounts before ending up paying for Nastase's presidential campaign posters.
Although he was head of the government at the time, he was convicted in his capacity as leader of the Social Democrat Party, whose candidate for the presidential race he was.
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