Romanian businessman Ovidiu Tender stays in jail, following a decision by the Bucharest Appeal Court which rejected the defense lawyers’ request of his release. Tender’s lawyers appealed the arrest mandate prolongation with 30 days, ruled by Bucharest Tribunal on April 29.

Businessman Ovidiu Tender is suffering of a severe heart condition, and was hospitalized on March 2, in critical condition. He has called for the preventive arrest order to be annulled on medical grounds, but judges rejected all his requests in this regard.

Tender is the only businessman placed under preventive arrest in relation to a major organized crime scandal involving the RAFO refinery in eastern Romania that brought financial loss to the Romanian state of 2,700 bln ROL.

He was placed in preventive arrest by the end of March 2006 pending an investigation on his alleged involvement in money laundering, embezzlement, participation to an organized crime group and fraud.