The Bucharest Military Court has scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday the final debates in the August 10 file, in which former heads of the Gendarmerie are being tried for abuse of office, in connection with the use of force against demonstrators at the protest in Victoriei Square in August 2018.
The magistrate in charge of this case, Nicolae George Octavian, decided that on Wednesday the lawyers of the victims constituted as injured parties in the trial will hold their pleas, and on Thursday the lawyers of the defendants, reports Agerpres.
After the end of the debates, the judge will have to give a short term for pronouncing the decision, given that the facts of which the former heads of the Gendarmerie are accused expire in October.
At the last court dates, Colonel Gheorghe Sebastian Cucoş and Colonel Cătălin Sindile did not come to the trial and, thus, the judge could not hear them as defendants.
Instead, Colonel Laurentiu Cazan, former deputy general director of the Capital Gendarmerie, was heard last week.
In August 2023, former heads of the Gendarmerie were sent to court by the prosecutors of the Military Section of the General Prosecutor's Office in the file regarding the protest of August 10, 2018, 312 injured persons becoming civil parties in the process.
It is about colonel (r) Gheorghe Sebastian Cucoş, former head of the Romanian Gendarmerie; colonel Laurenţiu Cazan, former deputy general director of the Gendarmerie of the Capital, currently an officer within this structure; colonel Cătălin Sindile, former first deputy head of the Romanian Gendarmerie, accused of abuse of office.
In the same case, 13 other officers and non-commissioned officers from the Gendarmerie of the Capital were sent to court: col. (r) Laurentiu Ciobanu Cristian, former battalion commander within the DGJMB, col. Răzvan Cătălin Popescu, col. Marian Ion Zăvoianu, Lt. Col. Adrian Costel Dumitru, mr. Luca Moldoveanu, Capt. Marius Daniel Mihai, Plt. adj. (r) Alin Belecciu, plt. Maj. Marian Cristian Bîrsan, plt. adj. Cristian Bolat, plt. adj. chief George Buzatu, plt. adj. Florea Carmocanu, plt. adj. chief (r) Bardahan Pavel Custrin and plt. Maj. (r) George Constantin Zamfir.
They are accused of abusive behavior or complicity in this crime.
According to the investigation, Colonel Laurenţiu Cazan, as commander of the action, as well as Gheorghe Cucoş and Ionuţ Sindile, as coordinators of the same action, performed their duties in a defective manner and ordered the subordinate gendarmes, in violation of the legal provisions, to intervene by force in order to disperse the entire mass of protesters present in Piaţa Victoriei – approximately 30,000 people, intervention that they later led.
The prosecutors argue that the forceful intervention of the gendarmes against the entire mass of protesters in Piaţa Victoriei, on August 10, 2018, was illegal and unjustified, and the use by the law enforcement forces of some of their devices – rubber batons, protective shields, tear gas sprays, hand grenades with an acoustic and irritating tear gas effect, high-capacity sprayers and cartridges – can be considered as a treatment “inhuman” and “degrading”.
