A businessman accused of terrorism is gone missing as authorities try to re-arrest him. The legacy of the Securitate, Ceausescu’s political police, spreads within political circles in Bucharest. Romania cuts some of its troops in Iraq. And Romanian wine is struggling to keep up with foreign competition on the local market. All in today’s newspapers.

A Romanian court decided on Wednesday to bring businessman of Arab descent Omar Hayssam back to jail because he would not comply with court procedures in the case opened against him on terrorism-related charges.

Hayssam had been arrested because of his involvement in the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists and another businessman in Iraq last year. But he was freed and was thought to have been hospitalized, as he suffers of cancer.

But now, just as the Appeals Court in Bucharest placed an order for him not to leave the country, Hayssam has “evaporated”, Evenimentul Zilei reports. According to the newspaper, efforts to find Hayssam failed despite the involvement of the Romanian Intelligence Service.

According to Cotidianul, Hayssam’s family says he left home two weeks ago as he got upset that doctors told him he had six months left to live. But interviews with medicine men in a Carpathian town where the businessman was alleged to have looked for a possible cancer cure failed to provide hints about his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the avalanche of requests for the revelation of Communist secret police files of high-profile politicians continued yesterday with a call from a Liberal Party leader, Ludovic Orban.

He requested the National Council Studying the Archives of the Securitate - CNSAS to reveal the documentation on three top Liberal representatives, who have recently become at loggerheads with the official leadership of the party, Evenimentul Zilei reports.

The same newspaper also quotes far-right leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who threatened to send “siege troups” at the CNSAS as the media reported his case - concluded with a negative vote in the CNSAS in 2004 - should be re-opened to see whether he collaborated with the Securitate.

Politics stay in the forefront with a report in Gandul on the summer activities of various politicians. Ex-PM Adrian Nastase, involved in a series of corruption cases, is practicing his skills as a journalist at the news television Realitatea TV.

Another politician, Cozmin Gusa, dedicates two weeks of his life to work as a taxi driver and thus get the pulse of the people. And another, Nati Meir, said he would spend two weeks working as a prison guard, the newspaper reports.

Adevarul quotes a European Report that says Romania remains a country with serious legislative problems, as it evaluates the performance of its judicial system without having a proper list of criteria.

Elsewhere in the newspapers, Evenimentul Zilei reports that Romania would “partially” withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of the restructuring process currently applied to the international coalition in the Gulf country.

According to Chief of Staff Eugen Badalan, Romanian troops in Iraq will be cut by 21% from 783 to 628 troops in the near future.

The same newspaper writes that Romanian wine producers have asked the authorities to apply restrictions on wine imports from the neighboring Moldovan Republic as Romania has been sieged with such wines since Russia banned wine imports from the ex-Soviet Republic.

The newspaper quotes industry representatives who said the wave of Moldovan exports is a first shock for the Romanian market, which is to be followed by a second once the country joins the EU.

According to Cotidianul, this comes as many other countries have boosted their exports to Romania, especially Spain, Italy, France and Germany, challenging the capacity of Romanian producers to keep up with the competition.