BUCHAREST, Romania — An Israeli employee of private intelligence firm Black Cube was convicted in Romania Wednesday of trying to intimidate the country’s crusading anti-corruption chief.
David Geclowicz was ordered to serve 80 days of community service and given a suspended jail sentence of two years and eight months, Agerpres news agency reported, for targeting three people close to Laura Kovesi, the head of Romania’s National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA).
Geclowicz pleaded guilty for undertaking what prosecutors called a campaign of “harassment” to destabilize Kovesi’s team with “multiple threatening telephone calls” and email “piracy” aimed at “uncovering evidence of possible corruption” by Kovesi.
Another Black Cube employee, Ron Weiner, has also pleaded guilty, and the court will hand down his sentence on November 28. A third Black Cube employee based in Israel is the subject of a Romanian arrest warrant.
Black Cube bills itself as a “select group of veterans from the Israeli elite intelligence units,” and its website lists former Mossad director, Meir Dagan, who died earlier this year, as its honorary president.
Kovesi has spearheaded an unprecedented campaign against graft in Romania, which joined the European Union in 2007 but has come under pressure from Brussels to root out systemic corruption.
The bellwether corruption conviction in 2012 of ex-prime minister Adrian Nastase was a sign times were changing in the EU’s second-poorest country.
Last month a former Romanian minister was jailed in a corruption case, while eight other former ministers are caught up in other graft scandals.
This is not the first time Kovesi has been targeted by critics. In September a former Romanian secret service agent was arrested for allegedly masterminding an operation to intimidate Kovesi in order to avenge his being fired last year following a DNA investigation.
Romania has sentenced an Israeli national accused of alleged espionage to a suspended prison term of two years and eight months on charges of harassing the country’s anti-corruption czar, according to local media.
After pleading guilty to attempting to intimidate the director of Romania’s National Anti-corruption Directorate, Laura Kovesi, a Bucharest court also ordered David Geclowicz to serve 80 days of community service.
Geclowicz, an employee of the private Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube, allegedly admitted to targeting three people close to Kovesi, Romania’s Agerpres reported.
According to Agerpres, Geclowicz’s conviction Wednesday also included offenses that constitute organized crime, such as the “unauthorized transfer of data, complicity in falsifying information, complicity in illegal operation using devices and software, and aiding and abetting the violation of a correspondence confidentiality.”
In April, Geclowicz was one of two Israelis working for Black Cube who were arrested in the Eastern European nation on allegations of spying on a senior Romanian official.
With offices in Tel Aviv and London, Black Cube describes itself as a “select group of the elite Israeli intelligence community who specializes in tailored solutions to complex business and litigation challenges.”
According to previous Romanian media reports, Geclowicz, along with fellow Black Cube employee Ron Weiner, were accused of hacking into three email accounts of people close to Kovesi.
Following the arrest of the two, a diplomatic official in Jerusalem underlined that the two were private citizens acting in a private capacity.
Weiner has also reportedly pleaded guilty and a Romanian court was expected to hand down his sentence later in November.
A third Black Cube employee indicted in the case managed to flee Romania, however the country has reportedly made efforts to issue an arrest warrant in absentia for him.