Episode 18 – The Prime Minister’s Message, an Execution Order

After three days of media lynching against me, the disinformation of public opinion became official state policy through the intervention of Prime Minister Victor Viorel Ponta. The head of the Executive launched a message that was to implacably determine the mendacious course of the investigation (art.1).

A day after the Prime Minister’s message (the “order”), the DNA prosecutors organized raids targeting us, with intensely publicized searches and live broadcasts. The press presented us, on the basis of some “sources close to the investigation,” as being involved in acts of corruption, while also resuming the accusation that we are guilty of the violence at Râul Alb. From the recipe of “eliminating the target,” only my handcuffing was missing. They would probably have resorted to handcuffs as well, but at that time I was in intensive care with paralysis from the neck down.

The Sinister Year 2015

For those who have forgotten how criminal files were fabricated in 2015 and the way in which the parallel State in Justice functioned, we reproduce a passage from the preface written by Ion Cristoiu to the book Confessions from Oprea’s Living Room: “2015 remains in post-December History as the Year of the Terror of Handcuffs. Such a year is hard to encounter even in the history of modern Romania. Perhaps only 1950, the peak year of Stalinist Terror in Romania, equals it. In 2015, the SRI-DNA Binomial wreaks havoc on our public stage. Politicians, judges, prosecutors, businessmen are snatched up by the DNA on the basis of files drawn up illegally by the SRI, which used for this an incredibly large number of abuses, of violations of human rights, detained for 24 hours, dragged into court with the proposal of preventive arrest, preventively arrested, sometimes for several months, in order to then be sent to trial on the basis of a file fabricated in haste. (…) The basis was constituted by an Indictment drafted in strictly journalistic terms, supported by transcripts recording entire hours of the accused’s interceptions by the SRI, absolutely useless legally, because they brought no testimony. Many of those acquitted still wonder today whether they will ever manage to recover the enormous damages produced by the Terror of the handcuffs: money spent on lawyers, bewildered families, the loss of positions, public defamation”

Fake News at the Highest Level

On 28 May 2015, a press release from the government misinformed public opinion in favor of the so-called environmentalists: “The Prime Minister firmly condemns the acts of physical aggression against some environmental activists, committed four days ago at Râul Alb, Hunedoara County, and asks for the identification and bringing to account of the aggressors. Likewise, the Prime Minister expresses his compassion for the victims of this incident and supports the appeal launched by the Coalition for the Environment in Romania”, it is stated in the release transmitted by the Government. At the end of the message, as a thing of no great importance, the Prime Minister “expressed his compassion” toward us. So, at the Government my situation was known, I being at that time admitted to intensive care in a very serious condition, without the doctors being able to pronounce whether I would survive the spinal surgery. Even though it was publicly known that an activist had driven the car over me, the Prime Minister – a former prosecutor!!! – “firmly condemns” us too in connection with the “acts of physical aggression against some environmental activists”. Moreover, in his capacity as Prime Minister of Romania, Ponta had all the real information about the events at Râul Alb, having under his subordination the Ministry of Justice, with the structure of Prosecutor’s Offices, and the Ministry of the Interior, with the officers who made the on-site investigation. The chiefs of these institutions certainly presented him with the briefings concerning the event, he being the direct beneficiary of the informative notes coming from “Two and a Quarter,” the “espionage” service of the Ministry of the Interior. The true aggressors were free and enjoyed the protection of the “system,” and this release was to weigh heavily in the course of the investigation.

The Masquerade with Masked Men

The DNA prosecutors responded to the Prime Minister’s ORDER “immediately,” that is, from the very day of 28 May 2015, when the Government was broadcasting the Prime Minister’s message. On that day, at 20:00, the prosecutors of the DNA Alba Iulia territorial service had already obtained the technical surveillance warrant no. 62/UP/28.05.2015 for “the interception and recording of communications or of any type of remote communication carried out by Bocea Ana.” (It must be specified that Ana Bocea had no involvement in the story, her only capacity being that of my wife.) On 29 May, the “masked men” descended on several of our locations and on the headquarters of some local institutions that had issued us the approvals and authorizations for the projects.

Taken into the sights of the DNA and of the news bulletins were: the registered headquarters in Deva of SC ABI Automotion SRL, the secondary headquarters of the firm in Coroieşti, the location of the Micro-hydropower plant, the Mureş Water Basin Administration, the Hunedoara Environmental Protection Agency, the Administration of the Dinosaurs’ Geopark in Haţeg, the Faculty of Geology and Geophysics in Bucharest, the domicile of the named Vass Iudita in Cluj Napoca, the domicile of the named Coman Nelu in Coroieşti, and my family’s home, I being at that moment hospitalized in intensive care. The criminal investigation in this criminal case (no.134/ P/ 2015) of the DNA Alba Iulia was carried out “regarding the commission of the crime of abuse of office if the public official obtained for himself or for another an undue benefit, provided by art. 13 index 2, of Law 78/2000, with the application of art. 297 Penal Code,” following the “notification” made by Dejeu Călin (doc.1). The first proof that action was taken at the “order of the system” is that the notification does not meet the legal elements: “In order to be taken into consideration, any notification must obligatorily contain certain elements, as provided in the Code of Criminal Procedure, at article 289 and at article 290.” The second proof that action was taken on order is that the DNA searches were accompanied by the subservient press, which presented us as criminals. Dejeu Călin was present at the searches in Coroieşti and walked along the route of the investments, together with the DNA prosecutors. The report drawn up following this field visit shows that in that area nothing illegal occurred (doc.2). Despite the obvious findings, the media lynching against us continued until 2023 and there are no signs that it would stop.

The Invasion with Microphones

For three months, in the period 28.05.2015 – 23.08.2015, technical surveillance measures were authorized, consisting of the interception and recording of telephone conversations and communications, the recording of conversations and communications carried out in the ambient environment, and localization by technical means for several persons in my group of friends. During the entire mentioned period I was in intensive care or in post-operative recovery, being in a critical situation, permanently assisted by my wife. Subsequently, seeing all these abuses, I requested the joining of the file instrumented by the DNA Alba Iulia prosecutors (no. 134/P/2015) to the criminal file of the attempted murder crime (no. 277/P/2015). The first request was rejected, but I insisted with another request that was admitted by order no. 58/ÎI-2/2018, issued by the hierarchically superior prosecutor (doc.3).

On 27.09.2018, the case prosecutor Ilie Mihai Eduard – General Prosecutor’s Office attached to the I.C.C.J., received the file from the DNA Alba Iulia for processing, which contains 35 volumes, 12,057 (twelve thousand fifty-seven) pages, having attached 2 envelopes containing documents seized during the searches, as well as 13 CDs filed by the named Dejeu Călin. Prosecutor Ilie made copies of only 160 pages, from vol. 1 and vol. 12, after which, on 30.10.2018, he returned the file to the DNA Alba Iulia, without informing us that he had been in possession of the entire file, so that we too could study it in order to identify possible evidence for demonstrating the truth. In the file there was a written request from us in which we asked to be informed in writing when evidence is administered in the file, but as can be seen the case prosecutor did not take our request into account. The 160 pages, considered by prosecutor Ilie Mihai Eduard as being significant and useful to the case, contain telephone discussions carried out by my wife with our relatives, friends, and employees. The transcripts have no legal relevance, as proof the indictment cites them only in the index, just to be there in number…

The tele-justice of the DNA Alba Iulia prosecutors appeared in the main news flows, causing us serious image damage, both to my family and to our firms (art.2). After the labels of “aggressor” and “underworld figure,” I was publicly presented as a criminal involved in acts of corruption. SIX years later, in 2021, the DNA prosecutors informed us (only because they are obliged by law) that we had been spied on “ambientally” with special equipment and through the interception of telephone conversations, but we were refused access to the file. From this we deduce that the file was simply buried without any explanation, without any solution.

The State spent considerable resources to intercept hundreds of hours of private discussions, transcribed in thousands of pages of transcripts, but no one is held to account for the completion of the work. From the whole story there remained only our denigration and the media spectacle.