Interior minister Marcel Vela has announced on Thursday that the report on the authorities’ intervention during the Diaspora protest on August 10, 2018 had been declassified and sent to the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) prosecutors who are currently investigating the case.
However, the minister explained that, although declassified, the report cannot be made public before the investigation is concluded and the decision to disclose its content belongs to DIICOT.
Vela refused to reveal details from the report despite the journalists’ persistence, claiming there is an ongoing investigations, however saying he doesn’t understand why the former Interior minister Carmen Dan had not declassified it.
“The minister gives the order, sets the committee to probe into the opportunity, experts from the ministry said: it can be declassified. We also asked other institutions to give their go-ahead. SRI, SIE and the Gendarmerie agreed, and I thank them for that“, said the Interior minister.
He also underlined that he would like the employees of the ministry to have a different approach in the relation with the citizen. “Those who committed abuses will be sanctioned, I can guarantee that”, he concluded.
Sources close to the investigation told Hotnews.ro that the former Interior minister at that time, Carmen Dan, who was on vacation on August 10, 2018, came to the her office at the ministry and took command of the operations around 12:00hrs.
According to these sources, ex-minister Dan took over the command from Nucu Marin, secretary of state in the Interior Ministry at that time, and, starting from then, the orders were given through Mihai Valeriu, sub-secretary of state.
The report is thoroughly presenting the missions, the gendarmes deployed in the Victoriei Square area and the course of the events per hours and minutes.
According to other sources within DIICOT, Mihai Valeriu would have been in permanent contact with the PSD leader of that time, Liviu Dragnea and with the leaders of the hooligans. However, this information is not part of the declassified report.
Ex-minister retorts
Former Interior minister Carmen Dan said that she is the one who declassified the report on the Aug.10 protest and that nothing actually happened now, for only a page or two had remained unclassified, but claimed it was not her fault, but because some institutions hadn’t given their green light for the declassification.
“I wonder who certain institutions did not agree to declassify and now suddenly they agree“, she said.
As for her presence in the ministry on that day when she was on vacation, Carmen Dan explained it’s just a responsible act. “I did not take anyone’s command. The law says that when the minister is in the ministry he/she is the one in charge”.