Lawyer Victor Munteanu, ex-secretary of the European Court of Human Rights, noted he can say that significant progress was made in some of the cases he handled and that were put on the list of cases classed by the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) as political, which were sent back for retrial. He gave as example the case of Vento Company and of a number of businessmen. The prosecutors dropped the charges and recently the persons were acquitted, the lawyer stated in a news conference at IPN.
He noted that after the Parliament adopted a statement on state capture (in June 2019, e.n.), especially the part on the justice system, a series of criminal cases were to be reviewed. But the revision mechanism defined in the Penal Procedure Code is extremely badly regulated. It is ambiguous and the judges do not manage to apply it.
According to Victor Munteanu, if there is impunity and the persons who were involved directly in the fabrication of cases are not punished, this will be a clear signal that the situation hasn’t changed and there is a risk that similar actions will be witnessed in the future.
Lawyer Ion Cerga told the same news conference that three of his clients are featured in the political cases from the list presented by the PGO. One of them is Renato Usatyi. Two criminal cases featuring him were dropped, but two more remained. “Regrettably, cases started during the time of Mister Plahotniuc are still there... There were accumulated many fabricated proofs after misleading the law enforcement agencies in Romania, the UK and the prosecutor who now handles the case of Renato Usatyi deals with it with difficulty,” he stated.
As to the case of public disorder on January 20, 2016, the lawyer said he was surprised to see that the prosecutor maintains the accusation. This asked to drop the accusation only against one of the four persons featured in this case. But it would be right to drop the charges against all the four persons.
Ion Cerga noted that he knows from unofficial sources that the PGO’s solution to the case featuring Sergiu Cosovan was influenced by the emotions of some of the injured parties and this case wasn’t put on the list of political cases started by order as a result. The lawyer is ready to present documents showing that the case was started by order. He noted it is time to pass acquittal sentences and not to allow cases influenced politically to be started.
