MOSCOW, March 19 - RAPSI. A Bucharest court ruled on Monday that former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase is to be released from prison on parole after having served nine months of a two-year term for corruption, the Xinhua agency reports.

In January 2012, Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice convicted Mr. Nastase of embezzling $2 million in state funds for his presidential campaign in 2004. He filed an appealed against the ruling, but the court upheld the conviction in June. When the police arrived to take him away, he shot himself in a suicide attempt but survived the self-inflicted neck wound.

His lawyer said that Mr. Nastase is eligible for parole because of his age and exemplary behavior, including the writing of three books while in prison, and also because he has served a third of his sentence.

Mr. Nastase, 62, was prime minister in a leftist government from 2000 to 2004 and before that he was foreign minister. The authorities began investigating his case in 2006, but the probe was put on hold several times due to procedural issues.

Mr. Nastase, the most senior Romanian politician to have been sentenced for corruption, had to resign as parliament speaker and head of the Social Democratic Party in 2006. He denied any wrongdoing and insisted that the case was politically motivated.