Allegations scandal: DNA claims situation from a criminal file was distorted. Prosecutor Lucian Onea: I haven’t violated the law

The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) has stepped forward on Monday to defend the chief prosecutor of Ploiesti branch, Lucian Onea, regarding the recordings released by Antena 3 TV Sunday evening, claiming that the former Deputy Vlad Cosma has distorted the situation from a criminal file, by using collages from various recordings made by him, cotidianul.ro informs.

DNA claims that, before releasing the recordings, certain characters from Vlad Cosma’s entourage have repeatedly come to the chief of the Ploiesti DNA services and to other judicial prosecutors, the last time on February 9, requesting to take steps for a favourable judicial solving for him and for his father, Mircea Cosma.

DNA informs in a release about the transcription of a conversation between alleged persons from Cosma’s entourage and the DNA Ploiesti prosecutors, in which these persons announce that some recordings will be released on Sunday by Antena 3 TV and Romania TV.

Lucian Onea: We haven’t violated the law

DNA Ploiesti chief, Lucian Onea (photo), has replied in the recordings scandal on Monday during a press conference, saying neither he, nor his colleagues, have violated the law, as former Deputy Vlad Cosma claims, realitatea.net informs.

“Everything presented by the TV broadcasters is a personal variant made by Vlad Cosma, with the intention to influence the investigation until February 19, when the next hearing in his file takes place. Whatever pressures and blackmail, neither me, nor my colleagues, will give up, they will not succeed to discourage us,” the DNA Ploiesti chief said.

Onea added he knew for some time about the attack against him and his colleagues. “This situation is ongoing for about two months, we have been warned that people from Cosma’s entourage are preparing an attack in the press,” Onea said.

Asked if the voice in the recordings is his, Onea said he cannot have a clear answer: “It’s possible it is mine. The recordings ale collages, I don’t know what to say right now, I will conduct some checks. Several checks, controls will be probable carried out, we have asked for checks from the Judicial Inspectorate because our reputation is at stake,” Lucian Onea said.

One argument in his favour is, he claims, that in the recordings is mentioned prosecutor Mircea Negulescu ‘Orange’. “Mention is made to colleague Negulescu. He has nothing to do with this, he had no connection with the file. The discussions, if authentic, are not from the time when he worked with DNA Ploiesti,” he added.

Onea said he had never talked with Vlad Cosma outside the institution, nor with his sister Andreea Cosma, not by phone or by whatsapp.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office officials, quoted by the source, a complaint has been filed last Friday against prosecutors Lucian Onea, Giluela Diaconu, Alfred Savu and Mircea Negulescu (recently excluded from magistrature).

Lucian Onea has avoided answering when asked if he has talked about this scandal with DNA chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi.

Former Deputy Vlad Cosma showed to Antena 3 TV recordings with the two prosecutors reportedly trying to invent files based on ‘fabricated’ evidence for politicians and businessmen, among them businessman Sebastian Ghita.