Anti-corruption prosecutors have sent to court the case of former chiefs of the Police Academy, ex-rector Adrian Iacob and former pro-rector Mihal Marcoci for blackmailing journalist Emilia Sercan, who received death threats over her reports on police officials’ plagiarised PhD theses.
The two former police chiefs are indicted under judicial control, meaning they face restrictions pending trial.
Adrian Iacob, rector of the „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Police Academy in Bucharest and Petrică-Mihail Marcoci, pro-rector of the same institution were prosecuted in May this year.
Another police officer, Adrian Barbulescu, employed at the Police Academy at that time, is also investigated in a separate file under the charge of having sent those death threats to Emilia Sercan. Barbulescu has pleaded guilty to this charge.
The journalist has filed a complaint to the police and revealed the messages received on her mobile phone where she and her family were threatened regarding the release of several investigations she had conducted on the issue of plagiarism in the academic environment, including PhD theses at the Police Academy.
Prosecutors say that defendants Adrian Iacob and Mihail Marcoci have determined their subordinate Adrain Barbulescu to send Emilia Sercan threatening messages in order to convince her to stop her journalistic investigations that eyed plagiarism suspicions at the helm of the Police Academy.
According to DNA prosecutors, police officer Gheorghe Adrian Bărbulescu, working at the Police Academy, sent on Emilia Sercan’s mobile and on her Facebook Messenger account several threatening messages in order to force her to stop the journalistic investigations over several top leaders of the police Academy and over the way they had obtained their PhD titles.
“The defendant threatened the journalist that, if she doesn’t stop, she will be subject to violent acts and that her life will be taken”, DNA said.