PICCJ extends charges in "August 10" file to include complicity to abuse of office, abusive behaviour

Prosecutors from the Military Prosecutors's Office Section on April 23 extended the criminal prosecution in rem in the "August 10" file to include two new offences, complicity to abuse of office and abusive behaviour, according to a press release on Friday sent by the Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court. 

The heads of the Gendarmerie who commanded the operation in August 10 and are now subject to criminal investigations in this file were called on Thursday to the PICCJ headquarters to be informed about the two new offences taken into consideration by the prosecutors. 

The prosecutors showed that "many actions are under the suspicion of having been done precisely to justify the need of an action meant to restore public order and to justify the intervention of the gendarmes to remove protesters from Victoriei Square, Bucharest, which resulted in the violation of the legitimate rights of the protesters to freedom of speech and freedom to meet under the Romanian Constitution, Law no. 60/1991 regarding the organisation of public meetings and the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties, and also led to acts of violence committed during the said operations that were not justified by the real need of getting the turbulent persons immobilized - acts committed against children, which the gendarmes did not do gradually, as they should have, while they also did not stop after the purpose of the mission was completed, injuring in the process a great number of participants in the protest." 

The interim prosecutor general, Bogdan Licu, on Thursday stated he will meet with the leadership of the Military Prosecutor's Office Section to discuss the current status of the investigations in the violent acts committed during the August 10, 2018 protests and the manner in which the "Revolution" file was solved.