Profile
Romania Libera was one of Romania’s historical newspapers, founded back in 1877.
After the fall of the communist regime, the newspaper was relaunched. The German company WAZ bought the paper in 2000. In 2010, WAZ exited the Romanian market (along with other Eastern European countries) and businessman Dan Adamescu remained the sole shareholder of the Medien Holding Group, the newspaper’s publisher, which later changed its name to Romania Libera Media Group.
Now, Romania Libera Media Group is 100% owned by the Austria-based SPC 17 Holding and Management, and its sole administrator is Alexander Bogdan Adamescu, son of Dan Adamescu.
The company went through a difficult financial period in 2017 when it sacked some of its journalists, prompting other members of the editorial team to quit.
Dan Adamescu, former owner of Romania Libera and the media outlet Academia Catavencu, was sentenced to over four years in prison in 2016 for money laundering and bribing judges to obtain favorable court decisions regarding his insolvent companies. At the time, he owned several businesses, including the insurance company Astra Asigurari, the media company Medlen Holding, the Intercontinental Hotel in Bucharest, the shopping center operator Nova Group Investments Romania, among others. Adamescu passed away in 2017 in prison. His son, Alexander Adamescu, took over the media company.
Alexander Adamescu has been living in London since 2012. He is also facing prosecution in Romania in a case related to the one in which his father was convicted. Hence, there is a European Arrest Warrant issued in his name. Romanian authorities have tried unsuccessfully in recent years to extradite him. In June 2021, Alexander Adamescu was indicted by the DNA, Romania’s anti-corruption watchdog, for two bribery offenses. He was accused of handing over sums of money to judges from the Bucharest Tribunal in 2013 to obtain favorable verdicts in insolvency cases involving his father’s companies. Adamescu’s son denies the charges and claims that he and his family are being politically persecuted for critical articles that Romania Libera has been publishing.
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