Episode 21 – The Story of the Collages Meant to Induce the Illusion of Truth

After they fled the scene, the “saviors of the environment” met with Tudor-Todoran Bogdan-Ioan (the lawyer of Păun Gabriel) and went together to recover the camera with which Gerit filmed. The lawyer declared that: “I asked them for the camera and I believe that I watched the entire recording together with the two of them, and the images were transferred, creating a copy on my laptop.” Before reaching the police, the video recordings were falsified and posted on social networks. The “eco” agents reached the police after five hours, but did not hand over the cameras with which they filmed, nor the original footage that certainly contained the scene of the commission of the criminal act.

During the period when I was admitted to intensive care and to the recovery center, the family kept me far from the slanders launched against me. In the autumn of 2015 I returned to the country and saw the articles and films posted by the “environmentalists” on YouTube. The event was presented exactly the other way around: we were described as aggressive “underworld figures” who “attacked them without right of reply” the young activists. The facts were presented under titles of the kind: “How the mobsters trampled those who defend the forests”; “The attempted murder against the Agent Green investigator”; “Professional video analysis of the criminal ambush in the Retezat”; “Activists attacked, Râul Alb, Dinosaurs’ Geopark”.I asked the lawyer to make me a copy of the criminal file, and the surprise was enormous when I saw that the criminal investigation was constructed exactly on the lies of the “activists.” That is when I realized that the policemen and prosecutors want to cover up the criminal deed committed against me.

Why Was Andrioni’s Footage at Păun’s Lawyer?

Tudor-Todoran transmitted the little films to prosecutor Herban, through two successive e-mails. They were the same collages edited and posted on YouTube. The first e-mail contains an audio-video file with the name “Film-Agent Green-24.05.2015-Râul Alb-Hunedoara” (doc.1). According to the report drawn up by the policemen on the occasion of the examination, the piece of evidence is composed of four distinct collages and one collage in which aspects taken from the other footage are shown in slow motion (doc.2).
How did this footage come into the possession of Păun Gabriel’s lawyer, given his witness statement, in which he says that he drew Andrioni’s attention “to keep his recordings because (they) are evidence”?
“Question from the prosecutor: Whether you or Păun Gabriel or his girlfriend, Gerit, discussed the content of the images with other persons?
Answer from Tudoran Tudor: In the context of preparing the defense, it is possible that I discussed with Andrioni regarding what happened and I found out that he has video recordings made with his phone, he knew about the recordings made by Gerit, with whom he had been in the car, and I drew his attention to keep his recordings because they are evidence; it is possible that this discussion took place before the hearings. With other persons I did not discuss the recordings. I did not discuss with Andrioni or with other persons about the content of these images; it is possible that I looked at the recordings made by Andrioni in his presence and that of my companions” (doc.3). From this statement the lie results clearly: lawyer Tudor-Todoran says that he did not possess the footage made by Andrioni Alin, but, from the evidence it results that he sent it by e-mail to the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Hunedoara Tribunal.
Why did he not hand it over immediately, together with the footage made by the other members of the group, when he arrived at the hearings at the Haţeg Police? The answer can only be a single one: the three cameras that captured the event needed to be synchronized in order to construct convincing montages. The collages built on lies were to be presented as authentic footage in order to induce the illusion of truth.

“Freeze-Frame” Collages at the Second Call Too

The second examination of the collages pushed the interpretation of the data a little further in favor of my aggressors. On 29 May 2015, three days after the first examination of the little films, chief police inspector Vonu Dacian draws up (alone this time) a new report for other recordings received by e-mail, on 26 May 2015, at 12:33, also from lawyer Tudor-Todoran (doc.4). The new batch is called “lawyer Bogdan Ioan Tudor Todoran – Raul Alb_camera_1 and 2”. These little films were also processed at the montage, as the examiner also notes, who records that: “freeze-frames are observed at various moments of the incident”. Now, these effects cannot be obtained naturally during a recording. From these collages, longer than the first ones, the footage of Andrioni Alin was removed, and the examiner finds only three aspects relevant: 1. The aggression against Păun Gabriel; 2. The aggression against the witness Leordean Vasile; 3. The place where the victim Bocea Mihalache remained. The author of the expertise reverses the chronology of the facts and focuses almost exclusively on the aggressions against the fake environmentalists, without saying anything about the way in which the attempted murder was committed.

After the file reached the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court, the case prosecutor Elena Emiliea Gavadia issued a new order for carrying out searches in the computer system. On 24 February 2016, Păun Gabriel’s lawyer filed in the case, on the basis of a report, a Sony video camera with which it is claimed that Păun’s girlfriend – Weidinger Gerit – filmed, and a Micro SD memory card about which it is said that it would have been in Păun’s mobile phone. Likewise, Andrioni’s lawyer filed a mobile phone, brand iPhone 6, about which it is said that Andrioni Alin would have used it at the moment when the events were filmed. The expertise of the storage media was ordered only on 21 March 2016, nearly a year after the commission of the deed (doc.5). Easy to observe that the administration of the evidence was done with great delay. And that is not all! The prosecutor did not request that it be established whether those recordings were authentic. Nor did the police bodies that made the expertises pronounce themselves in this regard, even though it can be seen with the naked eye that the films were edited.

Insinuations and Suppositions

The third analysis of the films was made on 7 September 2016, according to the report drawn up by Marin Călin-Ionuţ, police inspector within the IGPR. The expertise is of a frightening superficiality: it contains under two pages of text and a succession of 37 images “larded” with subjective, tendentious comments, through which the author pronounces himself on facts that did not result from the recordings. We quote: “It is observed how the named Bocea Mihalache is positioned on the left side, in front of the Hyundai Galloper car, on the hood, with the intention of stopping the advance of the car, driver Andrioni Alin driving over Bocea Mihalache, who remains lying on the ground, unable to move anymore” (doc.6). How did the policeman establish the INTENTION? It can be seen that he took inspiration from the report made by chief police commissioner Zaharie Marcel at the steps of the helicopter. The deputy of the Hunedoara County Police Inspectorate was suggesting (from then on, a few hours after the incident) the idea that I wanted to stop the advance of the car with my own body. This theory is demolished by the video images and, in the end, by the court’s decision.

The Original Footage Did Not Reach the File

The fourth verification of the filmed images was made on 15 July 2019, by prosecutor Mihai-Eduard Ilie, together with Gheorghe-Ciprian Lazăr – specialist in the field of computer searches, and Ionel Șcheaua, forensic technician: “We proceeded to carry out a comparative analysis between the basic video recordings (recordings 1 to 4) and the video recordings filed in the case by the parties”. A more or less correct examination of the frames of the little films would have obliged the prosecutors to admit that they had been delivered altered evidence by Păun’s lawyer. Any IT specialist could have found that the original fingerprint of the cameras had been erased, which means that the recordings were passed through an editing program. Moreover, at the end of the expertise it is shown: “we note that the video recordings uploaded to the internet contain the same images (frames) as the files filed in the case by the parties” (doc.7). So, in the file we have the same counterfeit footage that ran from the beginning on the internet.

Let us recapitulate the facts: Păun’s lawyer illegally possesses (and withholds) Andrioni’s footage, alongside the two of his clients, and later sends them to the criminal investigation bodies. It is clear that the activists’ laboratories needed all the footage that captured the event in order to synchronize the lie. The policemen contented themselves