The Special Operations Directorate of the National Investigations Inspectorate (INI) will be dissolved. Interior Minister Andrei Năstase told a press briefing on Friday he will sign an order to this effect.

“The political police force has been axed. A shameful chapter in the history of the police is gone forever. From now on, each and every unit under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior will have to work for the people and not against them. With this decision, I want to convey a message to the last bastions of the previous regime: you are going the way of this political police force,” declared the minister.

According to him, an internal evaluation has revealed some “very serious details” about how this Directorate was created and operated. Founded by order of the former head of the General Police Inspectorate Alexandru Pânzari, the Special Operations apparently had powers overlapping with other INI agencies.

For example, illustrates the minister, the Special Operations took over the role of monitoring potential crimes against the state, whereas this is clearly the jurisdiction of the Security and Intelligence Service. Or, the Directorate was given the power of investigating first degree felonies, despite INI already having a Directorate One doing exactly that. “So a question begs itself, rhetorical of course, who was profiting from this Political Police force,” asked Năstase?

“Let me also use this occasion to appeal to the last bits of honor in the prosecutors’ community and ask them to act on my complaint about the wiretapping of, and spying on some innocent people. Stop covering up past crimes. We will discover them anyway, but those involved in covering them up will be as guilty as the perpetrators,” added the minister.