Romanian anti-graft prosecutors launched a judicial inquiry against Social Democratic senator Serban Mihailescu on Wednesday. Mihailescu, who headed the General Secretariat of the Government when the now-in-opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) was in power in 2000-2004, is charged with bribery and breach of the arms and ammunition law.

He is charged along Marin Bucur, head of the Association of Sport Hunters and Fishermen (AVPS) „Cerbul"-Bucharest, for complicity to bribery and breach of the arms law, as well as participation fo falsification of documents under private signature, intellectual falsification and accounting irregularities.

The charges are related to older reports that Serban Mihailescu demanded 11 hunting guns from his personal aide Fanel Pavalache in October 2001, in exchange for his keeping his job, according to a press release which also says that in April-May 2002, Mihailescu received 9 hunting guns worth 260 million Romanian lei.

The „acquisition" was done on the name of AVPS, run by Bucur. Fanel Pavalache was arrested in october 2002.