Romania hopes to join the European Union next year, and its failure to tackle high-level graft has been a serious problem in EU membership negotiations.

Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, cameraman Sorin Miscoci and Romania Libera newspaper journalist Ovidiu Ohanesian were kidnapped in Baghdad on March 28, 2005.

Hayssam was arrested in Romania soon after the kidnapping and prosecutors charged him and Mohamad Munaf, the journalists' guide in Iraq and Hayssam's business partner, with organising the kidnapping to help Hayssam escape organised crime charges.

Romanian media speculated that Hayssam hoped prosecutors would drop charges against him when he presented himself as a go-between and would let him go to Iraq, pay the kidnappers a ransom and bring back the journalists.

Hayssam's alleged plan went wrong and the journalists ended up in the hands of a more militant group which threatened to kill them unless Romania pulled its 800 troops out of Iraq.

The journalists were rescued after 55 days, and Basescu praised the secret services' handling of the crisis.

Hayssam underwent surgery for colon cancer while awaiting trial, and a local court let him leave a prison hospital in April this year and recover at home. He failed to show up for trial hearings and this week a court ordered him to be put behind bars again pending trial. He then went missing.