The grandson of the Romanian king Karol II, who declared himself heir to the throne, was sentenced to imprisonment and put on the wanted list. This was reported by Radio Free Europe Romania.
72-year-old Paul Lambrino, who calls himself Prince Paul, was accused of illegally seizing a royal estate in the north of Bucharest. According to the investigation, he had no rights to this land, since he was never recognized as the official heir of Karol II.
In 2006, two large plots of land on the estate passed into the ownership of the Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz and his partners. The damage caused was estimated at 145 million euros (13 billion rubles).
Lambrino was sentenced to 40 months in prison, Beni Steinmetz – to imprisonment for five years, lawyer Robert Rosu – to imprisonment for three years. Romanian businessman Remus Truica and Israeli political consultant Tal Silberstein, who in the past worked closely with the Romanian political elite, also received long prison terms. The first will go to jail for seven years, the second – for five years. The journalist Dan Andronic, involved in the deal, got off with a suspended sentence.
After the end of the trial, the police tried to arrest Paul Lambrino, but he was not at his residence. The wife of the self-styled prince said that he was in Portugal. After that, Lambrino’s photo and information about him appeared on the website with a list of persons wanted by the Romanian police.
Father Lambrino was the eldest son of the Romanian king Carol II and the commoner Zizi Lambrino, who were married in 1918 in Odessa. Later, the unequal marriage was annulled, and Karol married Princess Elena of Greece. In 1948, socialist reforms were launched in Romania, the monarchy was abolished, and the royal estate in Bucharest was nationalized and transferred to Ministry of Agriculture .
Paul Lambrino was born in Paris and moved to Romania only in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Ceausescu regime. He claims that officially Carole II and Zizi Lambrino did not divorce, which makes the second marriage of the king illegal, and deprives the children of Helen of Greece of the right to the throne. Lambrino’s half-brother, the last Romanian king Mihai I, who held the throne until the end of the monarchy, refused to recognize Lambrino as a member of the royal family until his death in 2017.