Romania doctor probed for helping ex-PM avoid jail

(BUCHAREST) - A doctor who treated Romania's disgraced ex-premier Adrian Nastase after he shot himself is being investigated along with three police for allegedly helping him avoid jail, officials said Tuesday.

The four are suspected of "obstructing procedures aimed at imprisoning" Nastase who shot himself last Wednesday after losing an appeal against a corruption conviction, said anti-graft prosecutors.

Two of the suspects were policemen who were sent to Nastase's home to escort him to prison for the start of a two-year sentence.

Nastase shot himself when he asked permission to collect some books in what was initially described as a suicide attack. He was taken to hospital and operated on the next day.

Prosecutors did not name the doctor under investigation but the media identified him as Stefan Bradisteanu, one of Romania's best known surgeons.

Bradisteanu is suspected of having exaggerated the seriousness of Nastase's injuries in order to delay his jailing.

The three police officers are alleged to have agreed that Nastase be taken to hospital although he was not in a serious condition.

"All documents are being checked," Romania's prosecutor general Laura Codruta Kovesi told reporters, adding that she had suspicions about the diagnosis for Nastase.

On Monday, surgeons refused to say if Nastase was fit to be transferred to a prison hospital, asking instead for forensic experts to decide.

They also declined to give details about his condition and the nature of his injuries, further fuelling suspicions about the circumstances of the shooting.

Nastase, who headed a Social Democrat government between 2000 and 2004, was convicted of siphoning off funds totalling about 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) for his 2004 re-election campaign.

He is the highest Romanian official to be sentenced to prison since the toppling of the communist regime in December 1989.