An 18 year-long legal saga finally reached its end this month, with victory for Gabriel (Puiu) Popoviciu. Bucharest’s Court of Appeal stated that Popoviciu had been wrongly accused and fully acquitted him, along with the other ten defendants in the case. Judge Liana Arsenie, the head of the Court of Appeal, gave a 172 page judgment in which she concluded that Nicolae Marin, a since retired prosecutor with Romania’s National Anti-Corruption Directorate, had fabricated the charges.
Judge Liana Arsenie ordered the acquittal of all 11 defendants on the grounds that that the alleged offences do not exist, explaining, “The investigating authority assigned fictitious roles and functions and imagined authority relationships. The prosecution was built on a scenario imagined by the prosecutor.” She highlighted “truncated interpretations, the breaking of logical-legal algorithms and the attribution of criminal connotation to the exercise of civil rights and obligations.”
Popoviciu and his ten fellow defendants had been accused by Nicolae Marin of abuse of office, bribery and favouring the offender in connection with SC Băneasa Investments SA’s project on a 224-hectare plot of land where the largest shopping, office and residential complex in Romania was built. The July 2024 verdict from Bucharest’s Court of Appeal found that these allegations, involving an alleged gift of a bottle of whiskey and a PET bottle of homemade plum brandy, plus the offer of a position for the witness Motoc Ion (who later confirmed he never received such an offer) were invented by prosecutor Nicolae Marin. The July 2024 court decision follows a full review and retrial of the case and concludes that the defendants were wrongly accused and convicted, not least because the alleged offences do not exist.
The decision at the Court of Appeal in Romania followed another court win for Popoviciu in the United Kingdom as part of the same saga. In July 2023, the UK’s Supreme Court threw out Romania’s extradition request for him. That final outcome followed the 11 June 2021 decision by London’s High Court to refuse Popoviciu’s extradition to Romania because, as explained by: “The evidence shows a real risk that the appellant suffered an extreme example of a lack of judicial impartiality, such that there can be no question as to consequences for the fairness of the trial.” Edward Fitzgerald KC added that Popoviciu would suffer a “flagrant denial of justice” if sent back to serve his sentence in Romania.
A Brussels-based human rights activist said: “Although it is a relief that this case finally has a fair outcome, the many years of unjustified legal persecution have not reflected well on Romania. I am hopeful that Romania is turning a corner and that such abuse of the judicial system will not take place again.”
