Prince Paul is free again in Paris

Prince Paul of Romania, targeted by a new European arrest warrant issued by the Bucharest authorities, requesting his extradition to execute a prison sentence, was released on Wednesday by the Paris Court of Appeal, AFP reports.

Paul Philippe of Romania, 76 years old, was detained at his home in Paris and then incarcerated on April 7 in a new European arrest warrant issued on January 30 by the Romanian authorities.

The Chamber of Extraction of the Court of Appeal of Paris ordered its release and its placement under judicial control with the prohibition to leave the French territory.

« This decision confirms that France, like other European jurisdictions, refuses to become the instrument of a judicial and political persecution orchestrated by the Romanian state, for the sole purpose of preventing its rights to royal success, » his lawyer Miriame Laichi reacted, in a statement for AFP.

In 2020, the High Court of Cassation and Justice definitively sentenced Paul of Romania to three years and four months in prison, in the file of illegal retrocession of the Royal Farm from Băneasa, for trafficking in influence and complicity.

He is accused of working with a band of fraudsters, between 2006 and 2013, to recover the properties he claims as a heir to the Royal Family. The damage to the state was estimated by prosecutors at 145 million euros, writes AFP.

A hearing to examine this new arrest warrant is provided on May 14, in the extraction room.

« It is incredible that they have restored an arrest warrant when I know they are innocent, » Paul of Romania told France Presse.

A first European arrest warrant was issued on December 18, 2020, after his sentence in appeal, writes AFP,

But the extradition chamber refused in November 2023 to hand over to Bucharest on this descendant of King Carol II, one of the last kings of Romania, ‘because of a real risk of the EU fundamental rights.

In Malta, where the prince moved in April 2024 for an official ceremony, the justice also refused to hand over to the Romanian authorities, notes the French News Agency.

The father of the prince, Carol Mircea Grigore, born in 1920, was one of the sons of Carol II, king of Romania between 1930 and 1940.

In 1947, the royal family was expelled from Romania by communists and its confiscated properties. Conflicts continue on the goods from this succession, writes AFP.