The main points of the abomination generically named “Land Restitution Case” as it pertains to me:

(This is for whomever can and really wishes to understand)
1. The Land Restitution Case began exactly 14 years ago, in 2005, when an enemy of then Mayor Radu Mazare named Constantin Cucoara – former head of the Constanta Land Registry, recently hired by the DNA (National Anticorruption Directorate), started a criminal investigation, probably as a first call of duty. Since this case was an obvious flop, without any real merit, the police and prosecutors ruled out the criminal case and closed the investigation. The very day after he was named Chief Prosecutor, Mr. Tulus ordered the case to be reopened and assigned it to other DNA investigators under specific orders to get Mazare. President Traian Basescu himself wanted Mazare’s head on a stick. The DNA prosecutors sent inspectors to the City Hall of Constanta and retrieved 2 trucks full of papers dead set on digging out the slightest wrongdoing. That was not wrong in itself, but as they could not find much they felt the pressure from above. Finally, after an investigation that lasted 3 years, they put together a case, wrote a ludicrous indictment ridiculed by every attorney involved and took it to trial. The two accusations that founded it were:
First, they claimed that considerable damage had been done based on an inspection report drawn up by two DNA experts. One of these experts was a grandpa whose competence was limited to doing the math, as he himself testified in court; the other was, surprise, Constantin Cucora, the new DNA hire who had also filed the complaint. One detail should be pointed out: neither was legally qualified to assess real estate prices and therefore provide an objective opinion on the potential damage. Well, based on the numbers produced by these “specialists”, not experts, the DNA issued the infamous Indictment in which the prosecutors made up some astronomical figures they called damage. Of course the media and the public exploded. The result? For 11 years journalists kept mentioning the damage amount originally announced by the DNA in this case, namely 114 million Euros. Granted, it is an enormous number, but the land it referred to was equally vast, millions of square meters, as the Land Restitution Case was in fact made of 6 huge and completely separate cases involving the largest areas reclaimed and recovered in Constanta. Seen from this angle, given the area on which property rights were reconstituted, the damage amount no longer seems so spectacular. Of course, no one bothered to point out such details, because everyone’s attention was grabbed by the figure itself.
The second founding accusation had to do with the City Hall allegedly returning large pieces of public land to the claimants, which was illegal.
But let us suppose all is fine so far. The problem is that the land and appraisal survey report ordered by the court of first instance, i.e. the Court of Appeal of Bucharest, and conducted by two authorized experts, not “specialists”, clearly showed two things:
The damage in this case as it relates to the differences in prices mentioned is NON EXISTENT!
Not even one INCH of public land was returned!
Did you read that, dear journalists? Were you curious enough to read the case file or interview the attorneys who could have provided such information? If you did not, how professionally did you report the facts? If you did, how do you explain your one-sided reporting in this case? I am simply asking these rhetorical questions because every single piece of news about this case mentioned only the prosecutors’ original press release. There was no journalistic treatment for the purpose of finding out and reporting the truth. None of you mentioned the official survey report filed which COMPLETELY contradicted DNA’s original press release which all of you quoted in every single news item about this case.
Since the case was never reflected accurately in the media, with highly emphatic reports that always only mentioned the damage amount MADE UP by the DNA “specialists”, the public opinion was extremely surprised that the court of first instance – the Court of Appeal of Bucharest – gave a sentence that seemed too lenient when compared to the absurdities appearing in the press, which relied exclusively on the DNA Indictment. Despite the pressure from the media and intelligence services, this sentence was not entirely unfair. No journalist mentioned the survey report on file which acknowledged there WAS NO damage. But of course the press was only chasing the sensational and not interested in truth and fact.
So what happened next at the HCCJ [High Court of Cassation and Justice], the stronghold of the intelligence services, as recently proven, as a result of the declassification of the Protocols which the CCR [Constitutional Court of Romania] declared illegal anyway? It’s simple. Amid this mass hysteria fueled by the scope of the case and so-called damage, by the celebrity names involved – some of whom faced additional criminal charges in separate cases and were the object of public hatred (Mazare, Constantinescu, Borcea) – the case was “randomly” assigned to the infamous Black Panel led by the even more infamous judge, Ionut Matei. We must especially consider the fact that the DNA was hard pressed to become again the “guardian angel” of Romanian justice and was in dire need to restore its good name despite the constant media revelations of its abuses, clearly demonstrated as of late. From the very beginning it was obvious that everyone involved in this case needed to worry that a criminal conviction was going to be given against most of them regardless of the actual evidence on file, the defense’s arguments and the actual culpability or innocence of those indicted. This became all the more clear at the first hearing when Presiding Judge, Ionut Matei (who had missed the first scheduled hearing due to the Referendum case and had been replaced) ordered the attorneys to submit conclusions on the merits and finalize the case at the following hearings set on consecutive days. As mentioned before, this was a monster case with 90 volumes and 36 defendants made of 6 huge cases merged into one. Realistically, the judges would not have had the physical time to even quickly scan all the materials on file. But then of course in the 10-hour daily hearings that followed, in an unusually rushed manner, the judges rejected every single one of the over 20 pleas of unconstitutionality and perfectly fair motions submitted by the attorneys. There was even a comical moment when the judges omitted to allow the reading of one of the pleas and rejected it without formally hearing it.
It was clear that the judges were biased by the fact that Mazare was indicted in many other cases and had fled the country, that Borcea and Constantinescu had prior convictions – and therefore had no credibility and the Indictment, culminating in a humongous damage amount obsessively repeated in the press, as shown above, seemed bulletproof. The result was an EXECUTION: the court almost indiscriminately convicted left and right: everyone involved received criminal convictions amounting to many years in prison.

2. The Presiding Judge of the High Court ILLEGALLY constituted the 3-judge panels and obviously assigned the case in violation of the random principle and as a result this panel of judges EXECUTED us. On a side note, does anyone really believe that the case was assigned randomly to this particular and infamous panel? Please! And if assignment was targeted – and it obviously was – why did they do it? Evidently, they were preparing said EXECUTION. By law, the illegal constitution of the panel shall result in the annulment of the decision given in this case! The story concerning the illegal constitution of 5-judge and 3-judge panels makes a lot of sense and must be dealt with by the Government and Parliament under the decisions of the Constitutional Court. I am very well placed to know this as someone who was at the receiving end of such illegality and abuse.
3. One of the convicted persons in this case, Giurgiucanu Georgica, was right to point out that the leadership of the High Court falsely enforced Decision 80/2017 concerning the appointment of panels in 2018. The media had already reported on this on many occasions. But Decision 80/2017 DOES NOT EXIST and neither does the minutes of this decree supposedly given by the Ruling Board of the High Court. Giurgiucanu went so far as to alert the Judicial Inspection and the CSM [High Council of the Magistracy], and he filed a criminal complaint. Not a very smart decision, it turned out, as less than two months later he was given 5 years and 6 months in prison. Unfortunately, I was part of the same contract, legally tied to him, so I was given the same conviction.
4. The entire Movila case that led to my conviction, one of the abovementioned 6 cases, is based on one thing only: an alleged illegal deed of assignment of litigious rights which according to the prosecutors involved exceeding the legal limits of the underlying mandate signed 17 years ago in 2002. However, 4 civil court decisions showing the claimants’ actual rights in this case exist and were filed at the ICCJ at the hearing before the last. While the prosecutors did not see this evidence at the time of the investigation, and neither did the Court of Appeal of Bucharest, the court of first instance in this case, the Black Panel judges, subservient to the system, simply overlooked it. Moreover, even if the deed of assignment had been signed by exceeding the legal limits of the mandate, they would only have had a civil case with no grounds for criminal convictions. At most, said deeds and subsequent contracts could have been annulled. In addition, land titles were issued under Special Act 10, and art. 36 of this act clearly states the criminal consequences for breaking it during the process of recovery of possession by filing forged documents or claiming an illegal right of recovery. Such penalty has been time barred for many years now and said article was repealed in 2014. So naturally at present this alleged wrongdoing no longer bears criminal consequences. But the judges wrongly and absurdly interpreted this as aiding and abetting the abuse of office and ordered many years in prison 17 years after the crime was allegedly committed.
5. As for me, while no one understands in what way the employees of the City Hall of Constanta were guilty of abuse of office, I was charged with aiding and abetting the abuse of office although I literally did nothing. All I did was give power of attorney to Giurgiucanu Georgica to deal with the paperwork related to the recovery of possession under the law. This was my horrible crime! I did not file any document or petition, I did not receive any document, I did not sign anything. And, obviously, I did not talk with anyone. There is no evidence for these charges. It is unbelievable!
6. The Court of Appeal of Bucharest, the court of first instance, sentenced me to 3 years in prison with suspension of execution and the infamous ICCJ Black Panel presided by judge Ionut Matei – head of the ICCJ intelligence service – doubled the initial conviction, ordering 5 years and 6 months in prison WITHOUT ANY NEW EVIDENCE. Under the ECHR opinion and this court’s case law, this constitutes a violation of the right to a fair trial as guaranteed by art. 6, paragraph 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I am referring here to the conviction in my own case, but let it be said in passing that after 25 defendants were acquitted by the court of first instance, the higher court made of corrupt judges sentenced them to many years in prison without any new evidence, simply by absurdly reinterpreting the so-called evidence on file.
7. Even admitting that the offenses I supposedly committed and for which I was convicted actually existed, given the time that had passed since the so-called offenses the court of appeal, namely the ICCJ Black Panel, should have given a minimum conviction as provided by the law and suspended the prison sentence – as per the standard practice of the European Human Rights Court. At the time of the so-called crime I was 28. Now I am 45. This is about an alleged crime from 17 years ago. In light of the above, my attorneys explained that the conviction I was given under these circumstances infringes on the principle of opportunity of criminal trials as evidenced in EHRS case law.
8. As I showed above, I was convicted for aiding and abetting the abuse of office by public servants and sentenced to 3 years of suspended prison time, but the judge never issued a rationale and therefore I was unable to defend myself. The only reasoning given was contained in one sentence referring to my use of a deed of assignment that the court deemed as forgery because it was signed under a mandate whose limits had been exceeded, as I mentioned above. The court also found that I used this deed to determine the issuance of illegal land titles. This is not even true as all I did was give power of attorney. Moreover, with respect to the absence of rationale for the court decision above, this constitutes absolute grounds for quashing said decision and remanding it for retrial. Additionally, the court did not even rule on an offense I was charged with. As such, this decision given by the ICCJ Black Panel blatantly violates – in my case, at least – the OBLIGATION of the court to quash it and remand it for trial to the court of first instance under art. 421 point 2b of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Other than this article, the decision also violated Protocol no. 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the right to 2 degrees of jurisdiction in criminal matters.
9. Giurgiucanu’s case is the most comically absurd. As I said, both of our legal situations are directly linked. He was also charged with an offense that the court never ruled on, namely the use of forgery. He was, however, convicted just like me for aiding and abetting the abuse of office by using those deeds that were deemed forged – that is to say, for use of forgery, which the court did not rule on. In other words, he or least of all I could not have been convicted for aiding and abetting the abuse of office by using documents deemed as forged under the circumstances mentioned above as long as the court of first instance failed to even rule on the use of forgery. The only solution in this case was to QUASH AND REMAND FOR RETRIAL our entire case. Instead, and therein lies the comical absurdity I talked about, the judges quashed only part of the decision of the court of first instance that exclusively ruled on this offense and issued convictions for the resulting offense, namely the abuse of office. How did they charge someone with abuse of office by filing forged deeds when they did not rule on filing forged documents, i.e. the use of forgery, in the first place?
ALL the attorneys agreed on this opinion and the resulting mass conviction shocked everyone as ALL THE ATTORNEYS FAMILIAR WITH THE CASE DEEM IT AS ABUSIVE AND PROFOUNDLY UNLAWFUL.
10. In order for this decision to look more serious and include even more people, Judge Ionut Matei’s Black Panel also convicted me for being a part of an organized crime group, which is downright nonsense. Since there was no evidence for it to speak of, the court of first instance acquitted me and issued a crystal clear rationale. Also, in accordance with the EHRC decisions, this falls under the same violation of the right to a fair trial as guaranteed by art. 6, paragraph 1 in the European Convention on Human Rights.
11. The last explanation I would like to give about this case, and I hope this benefits anyone who is truly open to learning the truth, concerns Decision 148/2017 given by the Court of Appeal of Bucharest, the court of first instance. On page 184, the Court states the following: “The Court, although the proceedings to check the legal compliance of the Indictment have been closed, deems that said Indictment fails to clearly and concisely describe the offenses allegedly committed by the defendants in such a way that the Court may have an early understanding of what the charge is concretely and assess whether any motions made by the defendants and/or the prosecutor’s office to submit new evidence are founded or not – and such assessment relies on the complete understanding of the evidence with respect to the offenses that remain to be proven”.
The position of the EHRC in criminal matters is that detailed, exact and complete information regarding the charges brought against someone is an essential condition of the fairness of the proceeding, under art. 6, par. 3 in the European Convention for Human Rights. Consequently, the fact that the court of first instance only learned of this at the end of the trial has resulted not only in the violation of the right to receive complete information concerning the charges one is subject to, but also the violation of the right to two degrees of jurisdiction in criminal matters as guaranteed by art. 2 of Protocol no. 7 of the European Convention for Human Rights.
Well, then, great! The ICCJ Black Panel (composed of Ionut Matei – the Presiding Judge and head of the secret police within ICCJ, Ioana Bogdan – former advisor to the DNA Chief Prosecutor, Daniel Morar at the moment when the investigation started in this case in 2005-2008, promoted as judge at the ICCJ, what a happy coincidence – and Ioana Alina Ilie) understood the Indictment all too well, in any case better than the court of first instance and as a result dispensed a plethora of heavy convictions to everyone.
On a side note, although there are many public, written and spoken testimonies accusing him of issuing abusive decisions on command in the important cases he tried, Ionut Matei, Presiding Judge of the Black Panel has never been investigated. He was not even asked questions by judicial audit as it would normally happen in a democratic state governed by the rule of law like Romania claims to be. In any other truly democratic state with a solid justice system (not a joke, like in Romania), these extremely serious accusations would have been thoroughly investigated. Unfortunately, this situation is a reflection of the Romanian “democracy”, “justice” and “rule of law” which under the circumstances I DO NOT RECOGNIZE!
12. Finally, I was convicted for aiding and abetting the abuse of office but according to the record of the decision, as incorrect, abusive and illegal as it may be, I DO NOT OWE ANYTHING TO THE ROMANIAN STATE OR ANYONE ELSE BECAUSE I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE. You have been duly informed, dear journalists! Please find the record as published on the ICCJ website, read it carefully and report on it accurately. I am also respectfully asking some of you to stop making up stories.

CONCLUSIONS:
1. As it should be clear from the above, I am strenuously claiming my innocence and deem the decision of conviction given in the Land Restitution Case profoundly unlawful and abusive, at least as far as I am concerned. In support of this I have succinctly, albeit not as well as a professional, provided arguments that I believe should be considered. I am certain there are other arguments that may be provided, developed and explained by attorneys. They will be used once we begin the extraordinary remedies at law and before international courts. Clearly, many other defendants in this case have their own serious arguments that support my statements herein.
2. Although for many years I have felt the incredible public pressure on this subject made worse by the inaccurate and incomplete stories in the press, a press obsessed with red hot scoops, my attorneys advised me – wrongly, I can now see – to abstain from embarking on my own truth seeking campaign. It would have been only normal, even after the suspended sentence given by court of first instance, since I believe it was wrong anyway. I stupidly continued to have faith to the bitter end in the Romanian Justice and the judges in my case and their willingness to fight for truth. This is why I have not appeared in the media until now, I have kept my silence on this topic: I have discreetly allowed my attorneys to do their job of convincing the judges of my innocence. And I have allowed the judges to do their job of ruling correctly and lawfully, in the spirit and the letter of the law, undeterred by any kind of public influence from the defendants. Up to a point, I truly believed in the good faith of these judges.
3. Despite the obvious hostility shown by the panel of judges to the defendants, because of its magnitude the conviction decision came down like a bomb and shocked everyone, starting with the defendants. It was a real knock-out! No one in his darkest nightmares expected this decision. As horrible as the abuse they suffered may be, people cannot react too strongly from behind bars. Prison is a dark place where most of them were thrown unjustly and mercilessly. They were treated hatefully, with an aggressiveness that characterizes the Romanian society – more about that in a few days. From prison you cannot have opinions, talk back, and no one takes you seriously. Also, if you say too much and make too many waves, your life may be in danger.
4. I would like to quickly say a few things: I am a person of steadfast principles and I have a strong personality. I am a fighter: I would sooner give my life than back down, especially when facing injustice. The few people who truly know me also know that these are not just words. I refused to surrender to the Romanian authorities and serve time for an unjust and undeserved punishment given by corrupt judges who are part of a corrupt system, persons without a conscience and full of hatred against innocent people. I DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE CORRUPT JUDICIARY SYSTEM OF ROMANIA! I decided to fight to the end to prove my innocence and denounce the slaves of the unhealthy justice system of Romania. I will make sure this case is not only the object of constant debate in Romania, but also a very well-known international event, in order to alert the public opinion in the civilized world to the injustice, illegalities and mistreatment perpetrated by the current justice system in Romania. I will not stop until those who are truly guilty and corrupt, those who trample underfoot the lives of innocent people pay for it. As such, the absolute priority of my life has become finding a way to solve this problem by proving the mistreatment and injustice at any cost.
5. Anyone who thinks I am in fact at the beach on an island somewhere, relaxed and even amused at the situation is dead wrong. I chose to stay away from Romania for a while, working hard and worrying every day about finding legal ways to protect myself against the effects of this judicial abjection, and figuring out strategies in the fight against this horrific neo-Communist totalitarian system. What I chose to do is not cowardly as some may be tempted to think, but in fact an act of bravery. I am lucky that there are still legal ways to solve this problem as the last thing I want is to live as a fugitive for the rest of my life – this status is only temporary. One significant action I will take is to appeal the conviction decision at the EHRC. I have no worries about my ability to prove before the EHRC the abuse, injustice and violations of my rights; I am absolutely certain that the EHRC will issue a decision against the Romanian Government which will quash the conviction decision. However, the fact that this European Court takes so long to try cases is a huge problem. In addition, no action can formally be brought at the EHRC until after the Romanian judges issue the decision rationale. I have no doubt they will take their sweet time not only due to the high complexity of the case, as I mentioned above, but also because they will be hard pressed to come up with a reasoning so quickly and give a false color of lawfulness to their abusive decision. I also have no doubt they first determined the penalties using personal, not legal criteria – and now they have to provide a rationale for them.
It doesn’t really matter whether the EHRC will eventually prove you right if in the meantime you have served your sentence. You are already a compromised person who spent many years behind bars, your public image is ruined, your spirit is broken, your health is affected, your business is gone, your family life is torn apart and your family is deeply hurt and ravaged by pain and anguish. A meager glory, apologies and a few bucks as reparation after your entire life is devastated? Thank you, but no – this is not the way! Yes, the EHRC decision will be a relevant event that will forever close the discussion on this case, but it will not happen in the next few years!
6. As soon as the conviction decision was out and particularly after the news broke that I refused to surrender to the authorities, the sensationalist media simply ganged up on me, highlighting my lifestyle in a spiteful and tendentious manner. I have the right to live my life as I choose and I do not have to answer to anyone for it. So I would like to say to all the haters who dared to talk nonsense – WATCH OUT, DEAR JOURNALISTS – that my lifestyle has always been supported FROM MY OWN FUNDS MADE LEGALLY IN MANY YEARS OF HARD WORK, COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THIS CASE. AND BY THE WAY I DID NOT MAKE ONE CENT IN THIS CASE EITHER! To support the latter statement, once again I refer you to the record of the conviction decision available on the ICCJ website which did not sentence me to pay anything to the government or any other person, except for the legal fees of 30,000 Lei. I suspect this will clearly convince anyone that my statement above is exact and that the stories some of you published were false.
7. I am extremely disappointed with the behavior of the media when they found out that I refused to surrender to the Romanian authorities to serve an unjust sentence given at the end of an abusive and illegal trial. The media viciously skewered me incessantly for an entire week, throwing around outrageous accusations and inaccuracies – I will make some additional clarifications on this topic in a few days. Nevertheless, I maintain a healthy dose of optimism despite the obvious rule of a corrupt justice system in Romania. My optimism is justified by the existence of a few people with a conscience and principles in the Romanian justice system. There are some left even at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. I am optimistically relying on fair judges who have not been recruited by this odious system, on changes to the legislation meant to correct the misuse of justice, on the political forces and the media fighting this scourge, and on the public that looks out for real justice.
8. These were a few of the things I needed to say to the public and the people who know me personally. In my current situation, this is the only means of communication I can afford. I wanted to proudly make these things clear given the harm that this conviction and my refusal to serve an unjust sentence have inflicted on my image. A part of the Romanian media has contributed to the detriment brought to my image as they talked about me in my absence in a biased and spiteful way. Finally, I wanted to clarify my position in this matter. In the next few days I will address some false, biased and spiteful information shamelessly purported by some Romanian media outlets.