In 2019, the supreme court held that there was „no reasonable suspicion that the offense of blackmail against Liei Savonea was prepared or committed.” While the anti-justice media show audio recordings from the case of prosecutor Cristian Ardelean on TV, he points out that precisely audio recordings have disappeared from the case file.
After G4Media reported on the abusive way in which the former Special Section for the Investigation of Crimes in the Judiciary (SIIJ), created by Liviu Dragnea, requested technical surveillance warrants for Cristina Guseth, president of Freedom House, and DNA prosecutor Alexandra Lăncrănjan, who had Dragnea’s file in hand, the anti-justice press began a media lynch campaign against those who appeared in the transcripts of the file.
Suddenly, eternal critics of the „parallel state” and prosecutors have crossed the other side and support the view of some SIIJ investigators that Cristina Guseth orchestrated a media campaign against Liei Savonea, the 2019 president of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).
Lia Savonea even announced that she would file a criminal complaint for blackmail, given that four years ago, the Supreme Court held that „in the case, there is no reasonable suspicion of the preparation or commission of the crime of blackmail”.
Missing evidence from the file
As the anti-justice press wondered where G4media had information from a non-public file, RomaniaTV presented an audio recording taken from luju.ro, another pro-defendants website, of the case’s stenographs, on Thursday.
This was at a time when prosecutor Cristian Ardelean told us that the original audio-video recording had disappeared from his file.
„Given the appearance in the public space, on the World of Justice website, of the audio recording on which it seems that my voice can be heard and the discussion held with Cristina Guseth, I point out that this is very interesting given that I have not had access so far to such a recording, although I have made a request, in the case in which I am being investigated as a suspect since 2019, a case that has not been resolved yet, despite the approaches made to the High Court repeatedly.
As far as I know, my colleagues have not had access to such records either. Interestingly, this publication had access to another confidential document in 2019, to the disciplinary action of the Judicial Inspection, an action rejected by the SCM in first instance.
Another aspect: several files of audio-video recordings were found missing from the file and even now it is not known where they are. I don’t know if they have been investigated or not, the fact is that they have disappeared from the file”, Cristian Ardelean told PRESShub.
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Zarafina’s fights
On 28 June 2019, the SIIJ, represented by prosecutor Zarafina Puiu, asked the supreme court to extend the interception warrant by 30 days for prosecutors Ciprian Man, Cristian Ardelean and judge Crina Muntean.
Zarafina requested the extension of the interception warrants to „gather evidence”, as the prosecution of the three was in rem (for the deed, not for the person).
The three had already been technically under surveillance for a month after, in January 2019, the SIIJ opened a case against them at the request of an organisation led by current MEP Chris Terheș, who claimed that he heard that the two prosecutors were trying to put pressure on judges in Bihor.
On 28 February 2019, another complaint was registered with the SIIJ by Judge Ovidiu Galea, a former Securitate employee before 1989. Galea complained that DNA prosecutors and a number of fellow judges in Oradea had plotted against him, beeing inconvenient to them. The two complaints were joined by the SIIJ.
Applications rejected
On 28 June 2019, a judge of the supreme court rejected the request of the SIIJ to extend the technical surveillance in the case of the three magistrates because „from the content of the minutes it appears that the issues that formed the subject of the discussion between Ardelean Cristian Marius and Guseth Cristina Adriana do not concern the alleged criminal activity in which the magistrate would have participated and for which it was ordered to start criminal proceedings in rem in the case”. (…)
The aforementioned findings remain valid also with regard to prosecutor Man Ciprian and judge Muntean Crina, given that the minutes of the telephone conversations or captured in the environment attached to the present complaint only highlight the existing links between these two persons under surveillance, without containing data or clues confirming the reasonable suspicion of the commission of the offences for which the criminal proceedings in rem were initiated”, the conclusion of the High Court of Cassation and Justice states.
Moreover, „I consider that it is no longer appropriate to interfere in their private lives by restricting the fundamental rights of the persons concerned”, the reasoning of the ICCJ adds.
Puiu saw the offence
In the same month of 2019, Zarafina Puiu of the SIIJ comes with another request to the supreme court to put Cristina Guseth, president of the Freedom House Romania Association, and prosecutor Alexandra Lăncrănjan, representative of the Liderjust Association, under technical surveillance.
In the request, prosecutor Puiu said that the two were allegedly plotting to blackmail the then president of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), Lia Savonea, by launching a press campaign in connection with the promotion of the Guide on the relationship between the media and the judiciary, which proposed the secrecy of the names of defendants on trials.
„… given the acts of preparation of this act, the seriousness of the crime, the person against whom the activity of coercion by means of public communication is directed, an activity that is likely to prejudice the SCM, as guarantor of the independence of justice, primarily, and the president of this forum, secondarily, it is considered that, in this case, it is necessary to order technical surveillance, by intercepting the telephone calls used by the named Guseth Cristina and the prosecutor Lăncrănjan Alexandra”, the SIIJ request to the Supreme Court states.
The imaginary blackmail from the SIIJ
Judge Simona Neniță, who approved the first request to intercept magistrates Man, Ardelean, and Muntean, rejected the SIIJ’s request claiming there was no trace of blackmail.
„There is no reasonable suspicion in the case that the offence of blackmail was prepared or committed. The only telephone interception of 5.06.2019, in the absence of other data, information, is insufficient to outline the elements of the alleged crime of blackmail, alleged by the prosecutor,” the court’s conclusion reads.
The case of the three magistrates from Oradea was investigated by several prosecutors. The first was Gheorghe Stan, known as Giani, former head of the SIIJ. On 6 May 2019, Gheorghe Stan was nominated by the PSD-ALDE as a judge at the Constitutional Court. He was effectively appointed as a judge at the CCR as of 15 June 2019.
Subsequently, he was taken over by Adina Florea, whom Lia Savonea proposed seven times in the SCM, without success, to take the position of Chief Prosecutor of the Special Section.
Zarafina Puiu was the third magistrate to handle the case.
In four years of work, the Special Section has not been able to produce an indictment leading to the conviction of any magistrate. Instead, it has been spent lavishly. The seven prosecutors, together with the police officers who assisted them in their cases, cost the General Prosecutor’s Office 6 million lei a year.
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