The former Vice PM and Minister of Internal Affairs Gabriel Oprea came on Friday evening to be heard by the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).
After exiting the headquarters of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), Gabriel Oprea said that he made statements in the criminal case related to the death of the policeman Bogdan Gigina; the former Vice PM said that he told the truth.
“I made statements related to the accident in which policeman Bogdan Gigina died. I told the truth. The truth is that I am innocent, I was exercising my duties. Unfortunately, the policeman felt in the three pits that weren’t correctly signposted, they had no traffic lights” Oprea said.
The former minister mentioned he wasn’t called to DNA to be informed that the file was sent to the court.
“The case is still in the criminal prosecution stage. (…) It’s a complex case. Mr. Gabriel Oprea has a special quality. Two years after the event, we are towards a procedural act that we wished, we anticipated, about which we can say it is a success in the case”, said the Gigina family’s lawyer, Daniel Ionascu, on Friday evening.
According to DNA, when the accident occurred, the victim Gigina Bogdan-Cosmin was part of an escort of the Minister Oprea Gabriel.
“This escort, provided by the Road Police Brigade of the Bucharest General Police Directorate, was made up of a road motorcyclist (the victim Gigina Bogdan-Cosmin) and a crew consisting of a police officer and a police agent who were in a police car. This escort was preceding the car in which Minister Oprea Gabriel was. When the accident occurred, Minister Oprea Gabriel was going to his home located in the Cotroceni district” the prosecutors claim.
According to DNA, the evidence in the file indicate that “by breaching the legal provisions regulating the attendance of the dignitaries, the Interior Minister Oprea Gabriel ordered, for himself, to benefit from permanent attendance of road police crews, and these crews to consist of a road police car (a road police agent and a road police officer) and a road police motorcycle”.
Gabriel Oprea, as a minister, was making an average of five trips per day, during which he was accompanied by road police crews, the number being “approximately three times higher than the number of trips made during the same period for accompanying the Romanian President and approximately two times higher than the one corresponding to the Prime-Minister, which are dignitaries entitled to be permanently accompanied according to the legal provisions”, DNA explained.
