The Senate’s Legal committee on Wednesday gave the go-ahead for ex-Interior minister Gabriel Oprea’s prosecution for culpable homicide in the death case of policeman Bogdan Gigină. The decision has been made by eight votes to two.
Gabriel Oprea, who is a senator, also attended the committee’s sitting to be heard. The vote has been secret, while the committee’s report is going to be forwarded to the chamber’s plenum.
In this file Gabriel Oprea has been investigated for abuse of office, a file opened after the death of policeman Bogdan Gigină, on October 20, 2015, the agent being involved in a traffic accident following which he suffered injuries that caused his death.
The prosecutors say that on October 20, 2015, around 19:00hrs, police agent Bogdan Gigina was involved in a traffic collision that left him with a hemorrhaging head injury from head and face trauma that caused his death.
“At the time of the accident, the victim Gigină Bogdan Cosmin was part of a motorcade accompanying Minister Gabriel Oprea. (…) At the time of the accident, the Minister Gabriel Oprea was heading for his home located in Cotroceni,” the prosecutors say in a press release.
Investigators say proof so far shows consistent indications that, Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea ordered for self round-the-clock accompanying by a team of Highway Police officers made up of one motor vehicle of the Highway Police (one agent and one officer) and a motorcycle of the Highway Police, all in violation of the legal provisions regulating the accompanying of dignitaries.
Gabriel Oprea has been claiming his innocence ever since, arguing that “prosecutors are not following the right path”. He revealed that on the night of the accident he was returning from the Romanian Intelligence Service, adding that he was not the one who had set the motorcade or the riding speed.
He also says that the DNA forgets the most important thing, that Bogdan Gigină didn’t make a slip, didn’t hit any tree, didn’t get to the oncoming lane, but he fell in a huge hole on the roadway.
“My car had no speed, a colleague fell into a hole (….) Unfortunately it was a tragedy and a young man died uptown in Bucharest,” Oprea said.
The Senate’s plenary sitting might vote on the DNA’s new prosecution request for culpable homicide in Oprea’s case on Monday, September 19.
PSD chair Liviu Dragnea on Sunday stated that he hadn’t imposed the party’s MPs no line how to vote in Oprea’s case.
In his turn, the Senate Speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu said that he has been wondering what is going to happen if a policeman in the President’s motorcade had been involved in a similar situation. “I was personally surprised by this new charge. And Mr. Oprea was not among the people for whom I used to show an extraordinary compliance,” Tariceanu argued.
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