Section for prosecutors approves request for retirement of Augustin Lazar (sources)

The Section for prosecutors of the Supreme Council of Magistracy (CSM) on Thursday approved Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar's request for retirement, as CSM sources told AGERPRES.

The decision will be submitted to President Klaus Iohannis, who is supposed to issue a decree on the release from office of the Prosecutor General.

The Section for prosecutors of the CSM on Thursday added Augustin Lazar's request for retirement on its agenda as an extra item.

Lazar submitted the request for retirement in the context in which his term in office as General Prosecutor ends on April 27.

Augustin Lazar had previously applied for a new term in office as prosecutor general, but the Minister of Justice, Tudorel Toader, rejected his candidacy.

Accusations surfaced the media according to which Lazar refused to grant conditional release to anti-communist dissident Iulius Filip, back when he was a member of the Committee of Liberation Proposals of the Aiud Penitentiary.

Later on, Augustin Lazar claimed he didn't know that the files submitted to the Aiud Penitentiary's Committee belonged to political detainees, but he "apologized in the name of the institution" for its controversial practices before 1989.