New irrefutable evidence concerning political intrusions into justice in the Bivolaru case

By Maria Nicola

On Friday, the 26th of March, the Sibiu Court hosted the last appearance from the trial of Gregorian Bivolaru, Mirona Farcasi and Farkas F. Zsolt, following which the judge will issue the final decision in two weeks. After six years from the beginning of this trial, the haste with which its resolution has been decided is at least bizarre, especially as some of the key witnesses of the prosecution (in other words, of the Prosecutor’s Office) have not even been heard!

The decision of judging the trial on the 26th of March appearance has been utterly surprising, both for the accused and for the Prosecutor’s Office’s representatives, considering that the formal solicitation of both the Prosecutor’s Office and mostly of Gregorian Bivolaru’s attorneys, of hearing the “undercover witness” Marinescu Vasile – actually Simion Lupescu – and also the fact that during a previous session, the judge left the impression that she intends to hear all witnesses and that she also wishes to consider the final pleas of the attorneys, reason for which it would have been useful to permit a separate term for debating the issue, we can consider the haste to finalize the trial at least surprising. The judge asked the attorneys to present their final pleas, invoking their possibility of filing written conclusions on the following days, in order to compensate this unjustified modification in the trial’s unfolding.

Surely that this unnatural acceleration of taking the final decision in this trial is related to the inspections (that we found out about) that existed in several Courts of Appeal from Transylvania, among which the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal and the Sibiu Court of Law. Some of the inspectors’ colleagues have unofficially recounted that this commission has had – even since its departure from Bucharest – the task of asking the judge for declarations and rapports for each trial date concerning the Bivolaru case and the hasty pronouncement of the sentence.
Thus, one attempted to determine the court to pronounce sentence before the administration of all the evidence, under the mask of an inspection came from Bucharest, for verifications that would have allegedly pursued the very defense of the defendant’s right to benefit from the unfolding of his trial in a reasonable term. The moment of the intervention was not at all accidental, especially that the respective pieces of evidence were statements of the main accusers of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru, who could have thus been unmasked before the court.

One already well-knows the official opinion of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) concerning the causes concerning Gregorian Bivolaru, opinion that was extensively presented in the Official Note of the CSM plenum on the 7th of February 2006, in which it is said: “Concerning the solicitation of establishing whether the judicial proceedings in which Gregorian Bivolaru is prosecuted and judged were triggered following a political command we show that, from the examination of all the circumstances of the cause, there are no clues that would lead to the conclusion that the accusations formulated against him were due to a political command… The yogis have framed the brutalities from the searches, filmed themselves and gave the tapes to the media… The lawyer of Mădălina Dumitru was the one who released Mădălina’s diary to the media…”, there obviously results that the pressures were not only related to the acceleration of the file, but also to the pronouncement of a conviction in this case.

Besides, in the previously mentioned official note of CSM, we find an amazing fragment, which is more actual than ever: “the Minister of Justice’s demand addressed to the Superior Council of Magistracy to check whether in the causes in which Gregorian Bivolaru is indicted one obeys the rights and guarantees of an equitable trial, namely the dispositions of the penal process, represents not only an attempt to determine the inspectors, through the performed verifications, to infringe the principle of the judges’ and prosecutors’ independence in the accomplishment of the act of justice,… but even more than that…”

Is it a common coincidence that these inspections occurred after Adrian Năstase, the ex-prime minister, the one who gave the political command of the brutal actions against the MISA Yoga School in 2004, has just returned to power in PSD?!
Which would be the reason of these new political pressures on the act of justice? Why now? From what we were informed, the complaints forwarded by Gregorian Bivolaru to the European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR) will be judged soon. These complains deal with the abuses of the Romanian Justice beginning with March 2004, especially with the illegal detention of Gregorian Bivolaru and the issuing of the bench warrant after he was detained, including the issuing of this warrant for another crime than that for which he was retained in the first place.

For those who do not have a clear memory of events, we remind them that Gregorian Bivolaru was detained for “attempt of fraudulent crossing of the border” at Nadlac Customs, under the conditions in which he was in the Customs building, had a perfectly valid passport on him and was not confined to the border. Due to the disinformation launched through the Mediafax press agency, which excessively, purposely gave media coverage to the false information that Gregorian Bivolaru is confined to the borders, one could frame his “capture” when he tried to pass the border to Hungary, perfectly legally. (In other words, it is as if you went to the airport with a valid passport and medical insurance, and you went to the counter for formalities, and there you were detained for illegal crossing of the border, crime that is usually judged while the defendant is not deprived of his freedom.)

We mentioned only a small part of the facts – we will return in a future article – in order to be able to understand how flagrant are the abuses and illegalities that were committed by the Romanian authorities against Gregorian Bivolaru. The chances that he will win in the ECHR are very big. The ones who ordered the actions against Gregorian Bivolaru and the MISA Yoga School in the first place also surely found out, as did we, that his file is to be judged in the ECHR very soon. Surely that now they force the finalization of the Sibiu trial and have given the political command that Gregorian Bivolaru be condemned, because they fear that the ECHR jurists will discover all the abuses and illegalities of the Romanian authorities and will declare Bivolaru innocent.

The position that is prepared to the judge through these pressures is, therefore, that of scapegoat and sacrificed person, in this case. Her hand is forced to pronounce a sentence, in order for the Romanian authorities to have a pseudo-justification of the previous abusive measures and abuses, but, on the other hand, when these abuses will be unmasked, surely the judge will suffer the consequences, and not Adrian Nastase and his henchmen, among which prosecutor Marian Delcea. The Gregorian Bivolaru case, given the fact that he received political asylum in Sweeden, has already enjoyed media coverage in the European Union and it is inevitable for the media abroad to not find out about these backstage actions that are again done in this case. These pressures that were exerted, aspects that are obvious if we consider the way in which one “accelerated” the finalization of the trial, must be brought to the knowledge of the public.

During the entire unfolding of the trial, through the presented evidence and the declarations of witnesses, it has ensued that all accusations against Gregorian Bivolaru are invented by the Prosecutor’s Office and keenly orchestrated, with the participation of the authorities and the media, through a huge disinformation, such that Gregorian Bivolaru appears as the public enemy no.1 in the eyes of the public. During the trial, the accusation witnesses have recounted having filled-in the statement upon dictation from the prosecutors, and the key-witnesses in the instrumentation of the file have not even shown up for hearing, because the defense lawyers could have unmasked them very easily. However, about all these, we will return in a subsequent article, in which we will make a detailed account of the development of the Sibiu trial.

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