Another footage in the Colectiv fire case reveals more controversies

A new scandal broke out regarding the Colectiv fire investigation after the release of another audio footage on an alleged discussion between Health minister Sorina Pintea and the victims and families of those who died in the tragic fire in the Colectiv nightclub four years ago.

Within this encounter Minister Pintea said that the Head of the Emergency Situations Department, Raed Arafat (photo) and former Health minister Nicolae Banicioiu would have reproached her she had given documents related to Colectiv to the investigators without notifying them first.

Civic group Reset has filed a criminal complaint on Friday against the Head of the Emergency Situations Department, Raed Arafat and against the directors of the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, Orlando Șchiopu and Mihai Guță, following the recent release of a secret footage four years after the Colectiv tragic fire, which show the mess intervention of the first emergency rescue teams that arrived on the scene back then.

The new footage, released by Libertatea newspaper on Sunday, refers to a discussion held between minister Pintea and the representatives of the Colectiv victims at the Health Ministry’s HQs on October 4.

During the meeting, the representatives of the Colectic victims told minister Pintea about the problems faced by the injured and about the slow investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office in this case, while complaining that “prosecutors still don’t have the documents proving that there were no records about the flights that took the injured at the hospitals abroad.”

Minister Pinta replied: “Please, don’t mention about documents anymore for Banicioiu and Arafat reproached me I had given documents to the court without announcing them”.

One of the injured in the Colectiv fire asked the minister that, as far as the law says, documents must be given to the court if the court requires and that it is nothing negotiable about that.

Pintea answered that it is not about something being negotiable, but explained the two officials meant they would have liked to know about the documents being sent to the court.

The representatives of the Colectiv victims recorded the discussion with the Health minister so that other colleagues who were not attending the meeting to hear the discussion. The footage is filed to the Prosecutor’s Office.

In retort, Raed Arafat says he has asked minister Sorina Pintea is she has ever said that, and the minister has firmly denied. After the footage was released today, Arafat has publicly asked Pintea “to clarify this situation in public as soon as possible”.