Dan Voiculescu, president of the Conservative Party, said would sue the eight-member CNSAS, or the Romanian authority in charge with studying the files of the former Communist intelligence service, for leaking information on his alleged collaboration with the Securitate.

Voiculescu said he had yet to learn officially the decision taken by the CNSAS.

He also said his party’s top collective leadership, or the National Bureau, would meet Monday to decide over a possible withdrawal from the four-party ruling coalition government.

The CNSAS will make public its findings in two weeks time, in Romania’s Official Gazette, provided Voiculescu does not appeal the findings in a court of law, or steps down from all public office.

The CNSAS did not make public the findings on Voiculescu""s past, but media outlets Friday quoted sources close to the authority alleging the CNSAS found out he was a former Securitate informer and collaborator.

PC nominated Voiculescu for the deputy prime minister office vacated by George Copos, also a PC member.

To take that office Voiculescu last week gave up control positions in all companies he owns, and requested CNSAS to check his political past, as the law required.

Voiculescu explained his position in a letter he sent to his party members:

Open Letter To Conservative Party Members

"I begin by stating that by Friday noon, June 16, citizen Dan Voiculescu received no official notification from the CNSAS on its findings.

I state this to make it clear to any Romanian citizen that he or she may become a victim, as Voiculescu did, to the dealing of an institution which seems to work more to intoxicate the media than to search for the truth.

Millions of Romanians may be subjected to the same treatment as I was.

Therefore I can rely only on media reports to further support my case.

As it is, I think I have to thank the CNSAS for the service it paid to my image, alleging that I was a Securitate informer.

While probably willing to harm me, it unwittingly destroyed the myth which was for too long used in media reports, that Voiculescu was a Securitate general, who managed to access the bank accounts the Ceausescus allegedly stashed their personal wealth into.

So, if I was an informant, as the CNSAS seemed to have alleged, than I could not have been a general. And as an informant, I could not have accessed the accounts managed by the Securitate.

Thus, the CNSAS solved one of the false allegations concerning my past.

The other issue, the one of CNSAS alleging eventually that I have engaged in political police activities, I will settle in a court of law.

Before any further explanation on what went on in the past few days, I owe my colleagues in the Conservative Party a final statement:

I was not part of any Securitate structure and I never engaged in political policing. Whoever makes statements to the contrary is a liar!

I am a man of strong resolve, who always kept his self-esteem in high regard.

The naked truth is Dan Voiculescu turned into a very uncomfortable person to some people.

It was extremely bothersome to some the statement I made that I will turn decisively to politics, and take over the deputy prime-minister office to solve issues relevant to the lay citizen.

This Dan Voiculescu, embarking himself on solving the issue of pensions, of subsidized medicine, and of the health care system was indeed dangerous to the despicable system which conducts politics in Romania.

And the Conservative Party would have climbed dangerously high in opinion polls.

I stated that the government should show vision, accountability and clear dead-lines for achieving its goals.

I was able to make such statements since I did not go into politics to find means for getting. I first got rich, and then I went into politics.

Look at the current political elite and see for yourselves that I am not falling into the regular mold of a Romanian politician.

Given all these, but also the feud parting President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, who use rounds provided by the intelligence services, it is no wonder that after I was nominated by the Conservative Party as candidate for the deputy PM office, a special envoy brought to the CNSAS door-step a file 30-year old, alleging my involvement with the Securitate.

This was the first "coincidence" set up by the counter intelligence service, or SRI, to occur in my case. It was almost as hugely ridiculous as the now famous report SRI drafted on the spread of the bird-flu virus in Romania.

The common thread linking these two SRI reports was that both were drafted in a matter of hours.

My only question is: from what political quarters was issued the decision to achieve all these.

When we will have the answer to this question we will know who got really scared of Dan Voiculescu and the Conservative Party.

Whoever that person or persons may be, I can only tell him, her or them that they will lose.

They picked on the wrong man.

The second "coincidental" event was that no sooner had I arrived to my office at the Senate, after the hearing with the CNSAS, that the media received details about the session which had just concluded.

This was a hearing falling under the law for classified information.

We are faced, yet again, with the unfolding of a scenario drafted to ruin the reputation of people who turned into very annoying public figures for some people’s interests.

What credibility holds the CNSAS now?

I believe it to indeed having lost for good the opportunity to turn from a political weapon of convenience into a high moral ground.

I believe the eight-member CNSAS was never interested in citizen Voiculescu, but in finding ways to emasculate him politically.

This was proven by the fact that since yesterday noon they did not bother to send me an official note, and yet all media got word on what was allegedly talked about during our meeting.

The third worth-noting fact is that the CNSAS did not prove anything; it only took a vote.

Public opinion should find out that the CNSAS is one hundred percent a political body.

Its members are faithful to the political parties which nominated them for the position.

It is pointless to add that the PC had no representative amongst the eight members of the CNSAS.

I would like to remind here the fact that I was the one requesting the CNSAS to run a new check of my political past. I did it in good faith, confident that the experts working there will have a say, and that decisions could not have been politically tainted.

As a result I arrived at the following decisions:
1. I will wait for the CNSAS to officially inform me of its decision; if indeed its verdict will be the one forecast in the media reports, I will immediately appeal it in a court of law;
2. If a Romanian court of law will not do me justice, then I will take my case to the European Court of Human Rights; I will not relent to prove that truth is on my side and that CNSAS sided with dirty political maneuvering;
3. Irrespective of the developments detailed above I will sue the CNSAS and file a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office to start an inquiry into the leak of classified information to the media.

I state it once again: I was not a perpetrator of political policing and I was part of no structure in the Securitate.

You will get to know during the law suits that will take place that there are no real proofs against me and that no Romanian citizen had its civil and political rights infringed upon by my activity during the communist regime.

Unfortunately, we all witnessed these days the unfolding of the final acts in the process of discarding the CNSAS as a moral high ground.

It was downsized to a pitiful weapon used in political infighting.

As I have nothing to hide to the public opinion from my previous activity, I will make public the file which was presented to me by the CNSAS."

Sincerely,
Dan Voiculescu
President of the Conservative Party
Bucharest, 16 June 2006