A former Romanian judge and Ministry of Justice Secretary of State, Ovidiu Puțura (pictured), has spoken out from the Jilava Penitentiary to make revelations about files and lists that allege that Romanian intelligences services, the SRI, specified in advance who should be targeted and prosecuted and even the sentences they should receive.



The SRI’s former General Dumitru Dumbrava was also cited as having been seen in the Romanian courts, where it is alleged that he asked the judges to pass certain decisions.

The revelations are said to be yet more evidence in what has been a seemingly endless stream of abuses relating the SRI, their colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) and the Romanian prison system in recent years.

In an interview with Antena 3 Television in Romania, Putura also stated that anyone with an important function in Romania was routinely tapped in an abuse of measures intended for national security.

Those tapped included politicians.

In the interview, he explained the process: “Files were made in order for the judges to be tapped. When there was a file on the docket, one could make an application for interception authorization and it became legal.

“ Under this tapping one could listen when needed. If this went on for too long under criminal prosecution, the file would be closed and another file initiated so that the tapping could continue. It happened in all the courts, especially in Bucharest. All ministers were tapped under national security mandates and many members of parliament in the period 2012-2014.”

Putura went on to explain Dumbrava’s role, describing him as the middleman between the intelligence services, delivering orders to judges about what sentences the SRI wanted their targets to receive.

"This was co-ordinated from the SRI by the retired general Dumitru Dumbrava, who was in touch with the judges regarding certain files and requesting certain solutions in the courts.

“Long before my file was judged, a few months before, I was told exactly the punishment I would get, that Dumbrava would intervene, that he would speak to the judges and that he would request this punishment which is indeed what I got.

“When I was making statements in the file, at the Court of Appeal, the meeting got suspended for a few minutes and judge Dorel Matei said he was unwell.

“He left came back in a few minutes. During this time, lawyers who were in the hallway saw who was entering the aisle that was leading to the judges’ hallway.

“When he came back, the judge said that the judgment was pending. With difficulty he accepted the postponement of delivering the judgment of a few days. In general, for each court, there was at least one judge who was visited now and then by SRI officers. Ionut Matei is on the list. There are more who were had close relations with those in SRI. With the prosecutors there was a real brotherhood.”

Later in the interview, Putura told how he received a list of public figures who would be condemned and what their sentences would be: “On the list there was Gabriel (Puiu) Popoviciu, for instance.

“I even saw the punishment - it was seven years. Alina Bica was listed too, with a sentence of five or six years. Also on the list was Rudel Obreja, who was not a political figure but featured in a political file. Elena Udrea was there with a punishment of six years.

“We have nine or ten people that I knew from the public space and it got confirmed. I obtained it from the legal environment, but I understood it was initiated by the SRI. It is said that the author of the list is General Dumbrava, but this is an unchecked issue. There were politicians on the list and I even met one of them in prison - Dan Sova.”

Ovidiu Putura believes that one of the reasons he himself was targeted and imprisoned is due to a misunderstanding with the SRI, connected with the granting of the contract for electronic bracelets.

He explained: "One reason is connected with the codes, one with a contract that the SRI wanted and I did not agree to sign. It was about the electronic bracelets. SRI wanted very much to take this project because together with this project the surveillance went to the SRI. I was speaking to Dumbrava who kept on saying that the general would get upset, namely Florian Coldea. I told him that it was not the SRI which had to follow the prisoners, but it is the task of the Ministry of Justice."