Ex-IntMin Gabriel Oprea acquitted in the case of policeman Gigin’s death

The former Interior minister Gabriel Oprea was acquitted, on Monday, by the Bucharest Court, in the case regarding the death of the policeman Gigină, sources to G4Media.ro revealed. The decision is in the first instance.

The Bucharest Court decided to acquit Gabriel Oprea because “the fact does not exist”.

On December 2019, Bucharest Tribunal kicked off the trial in the case in which former Interior minister Gabriel Oprea was charged with manslaughter in the road accident that led to the death of traffic policeman Bogdan Gigina.

In May 2018, former Deputy Premier and Interior Minister, Gabriel Oprea, was arraigned for manslaughter in the policeman Bogdan Gigina’s death file, after the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) had concluded investigation in this case.

Bogdan Gigina died in a car accident while leading the former Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea’s motorcade in the autumn of 2015. His bike crashed into a poorly flagged pothole on a rainy evening.

The prosecutors investigated this case for more than two years.

The indictment reads that the prosecutors have found out: on the evening of October 20, 2015, Police Agent Gigina Bogdan Cosmin, aged 28, was involved in a traffic accident on a street in Bucharest, following which he suffered cerebral haemorrhage, resulted from cerebral and facial trauma, with cranium fracture and lesions that caused his death, hotnews.ro reported.

When the accident occurred, the victim, Gigina Bogdan Cosmin, was part of a motorcade for Minister Gabriel Oprea, heading the car in which the minister was travelling. At the time of the accident, the minister was heading towards his home.

According to the indictment, the traffic accident which led to the death of the Police Agent Gigina Bogdan Cosmin, occurred due to the violation – by defendants Oprea Gabriel (the then Interior Minister), Mazilu Petre (the then manager and sole associate of General MPM Impex SRL) and General PMP Impex SRL – of the legal provisions and measures of certain activities (motorcade in the first case, street works in the latter’s case).

Actually, since taking over, at the beginning of 2014, the office of Interior Minister, defendant Gabriel Oprea decided – by violating the legal provisions regarding the safety of dignitaries provided by the traffic police – his constant escort by a police motorcade and since June 2015 he decided that this motorcade should include a motorcycle traffic police agent.

In this way, Oprea Gabriel had discretionary taken over unlawful ‘rights’, which meant higher risks for traffic police, and also decided to travel at higher speed. Consequently, defendant Gabriel Oprea placed the escorting policemen in a high risk situation, in activities with high potential for road accidents, the same source reads.

In regard to Mazilu Petre and General PMP Impex SRL, by violating the legal provisions in terms of road signalling, both failed to instruct the employees on proper signalling of the roads and provided handmade traffic signs (…) which led to the improper signalling on the Stirbei Voda Street in Bucharest, where the accident took place.