12 January 2011
BUCHAREST - A Romanian diplomat charged with manslaughter after a hit-and-run car accident in Singapore protested his innocence in court Wednesday, while Singapore called for justice to be done.
I repeat again that I consider myself not guilty", Ionescu told the court on Wednesday.
"I consider that the investigation in Singapore was conducted unfairly against me because of the diplomatic cables I sent to the Romanian ministry of foreign affairs. These cables are classified", Ionescu told the judges.
He then started to recount his own version of the events on the night of the accident.
Ionescu insisted that he did not drink any alcohol that night, neither at a reception at the embassy of Kazakhstan, nor at an opera singer's birthday party he attended afterwards.
He also claimed that his car had been stolen as he went to the embassy in order to write some notes.
The former diplomat, who is now working as a consultant, also justified flying back to Romania just days after the accident.
"My departure from Singapore had been planned two months before" for medical reasons and approved by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign affairs, he said.
Twenty witnesses living in Singapore still have to be heard in the trial.
Prosecutors asked the judges to allow them to testify through a videolink in the future hearings.
After being held for seven months in preventive custody, Ionescu was released from detention in November pending his full trial after pleading not guilty to an initial hearing.
The court imposed him travel restriction and he cannot leave Bucharest.
- AFP/ir