Galojan released from prison
Anna-Maria Galojan, a former Reform Party politician and socialite is free after completing a five-month prison sentence for embezzling 60,000 euros from an NGO.
Galojan was sentenced to prison already in 2012, but she fled to United Kingdom just before she was due to start serving her sentence. It took Estonian authorities nearly three years to have her extradited back to Estonia.
After a long legal battle, the highest level of court in the UK ruled against Galojan in November last year, but she was still able to launch an appeal. She lost that appeal at the end of January 2015.
“I will not stay in a country so backward and I think I prefer to continue my life in a state which deserves the title of a democratic nation,” she told Postimees today, adding that she plans to take Estonia to court, and that her country "needs to grow" to avoid ejection from the EU.
Galojan, now 33, used the NGO European Movement Estonia's funds for personal use, including clothes, jewelry, shoes, beauty treatments and travel. The damage amounted to 59,485 euros, of which Galojan paid back nearly 8,000 euros. She led the organization for just a few months before being forced to resign.
Editor: J.M. Laats