During the day of yesterday I published in the on-line edition of Evenimentul Zilei a material in which I demonstrated that the relationship between SRI (The Romanian Intelligence Service) and the Public Ministry is not an invention of certain journalists with fevered minds, but it is an institutional reality. Furthermore, it is defined as a BINOMIAL. I repeat, in an official document of SRI.
I was saying, as most of you know, that the Binomial SRI – DNA (The Anti-Corruption Directorate) is a phrase which we can find in our daily conversations and about which we have the impression that it is consecrated by Ion Cristoiu. The oldest reference which I found in one of his newspapers columns is from February 2015. It has connection with an intervention of Traian Basescu within the Congress of PMP in which, says Ion Cristoiu, the former president of Romania defended the Binomial SRI-DNA as regards the accusations of Elena Udrea.
About here would be the beginning of the story which marks Romania’s history in the latest years. .
The problem is that reality is totally different!
Ion Cristoiu did not invent the phrase “SRI-DNA Binomial”, he only consecrated it in the consciousness of the public opinion. The opponents of the Master could even accuse him of plagiarism, only that they have not known until now that this phrase appears in official documents of the Romanian State. They are not classified, they only had to be re-read with the mind and information we have now.
THE SRI-DNA BINOMIAL has existed for a long time, in fact, I did not suspect since when, only that it was much more comprising, being presented in official documents. What documents is it about? It is about the Activity Reports of SRI since 2044 until now, which I was stubborn enough to read for half a day. To be honest, I was looking for something else, but I remained mortified when I found written in black-and-white what I was sustaining for months and we were told that it was not true! Not to keep you waiting any longer, here is a significant quotation from the Activity Report of SRI for the year 2013:
“The main cooperation activities were achieved on the relation with the Public Ministry, the Ministry of Internal Affiars, the External Intelligence Service, the Ministry of National Defence, the Protection and Gu8ard Service and the Ministry of Justice. The institutional Binomial the Public Ministry – SRI also functioned in 2013 in optimal parameters, fact reflected in the dynamics of the results both from the persoective of knowledge, prevetion and combating of menaces to the national security, and from the point of view of the criminal instruction”. .
Stop! What do I mean by INSTITUTIONAL BINOMIAL? Thus, in 2013 existed a cooperation at the institutional level between SRI and the General Prosecution Office, DIICOT and DNA, the institutions which are reunited under the name of the Public Ministry, which are also reflected in the PLAN OF CRIMINAL INSTRUCTION? Meaning in indictments, evidence, criminal files, cases in court; Do we not begin to see m,ore clraly the statement of the SRI general Dumitru Dumbrava who was telling us how SRI pursuits a file from the stage of instrumentation to conviction? They had all the means, did they not? Furthermore, the BINOMIAL functioned in optimal parameters in 2013 as well as in 2012.
Well, as if something like that had never existed …
Ion Cristoiu must be very disappointed. He will disappear from the history books the category of authors, because the term SRI-DNA BINOMIAL must be put under the signature of the anonymous author of the Activity Report of SRI for the year 2013.
Only do not believe that things stop here, the careful investigation of all the SRI reports brings to light incredible details. !
In the SRI Report of the year 2008 it is written black-on-white:
“The contribution brought to the Service to the fulfilment of the responsibility of the bodies of investigation and criminal pursuit was materialized in”:
- putting at the disposal of the bodies of the Public Ministry of certain gross data and informationwhich were at the basis of the intimations/information of SRI ;
The contribution brought to the Service to the fulfilment of the responsibility of the bodies of investigation and criminal pursuit was materialized in:
putting at the disposal of the bodies of the Public Ministry of certain gross data and information which were at the basis of the intimations/information of SRI;
the transmittal – on request – to the bodies of criminal pursuit of certain unprocessed data and information regarding persons involved in criminal activities;
the settlement, on the request of the judicial bodies, of the requests of declassification of certain documents/information;
the participation, within the mixed operative teams constituted with the prosecution offices, in the joint analysis with the prosecutors;
making available of the results of the scientific findings and expertises;
the settlement of the requests of transmittal to the judicial bodies of certain data, information and documents regarding the former and present staff of the Romanian Intelligence Service, involved in criminal files.
- the transmittal – on request – to the bodies of criminal pursuit of certain unprocessed data and information regarding persons involved in criminal activities;
- the settlement, on the request of the judicial bodies, of the requests of declassification of certain documents/information;
- the participation, within the mixed operative teams constituted with the prosecution offices, in the joint analysis with the prosecutors;
- making available of the results of the scientific findings and expertises;
- the settlement of the requests of transmittal to the judicial bodies of certain data, information and documents regarding the former and present staff of the Romanian Intelligence Service, involved in criminal files.”
An other bomb! Thus, in an official document of SRI it is said that the intelligence officers participated in MIXED OPERATIVE TEAMS IN JOINT ANALYSES WITH THE PROSECUTORS!
What DNA and the Prosecution Office have denied for months has happened (at least) since 2008 until now. .
How big is the lie which is being told us these days? I could say it is a big one!
THE GENERAL PROSECUTOR, IN 2017, ON THE PROTOCOL BETWEEN SRI – THJE PUBLIC MINISTRY
“It is true that there was a protocol which no longer exists. I think it is also my failure, because I did not communicate, I did not make a fuss when I took over the mandate, to say: There is no protocol which foresees mixed commissions or mixed teams or I do not know what. There was a protocol which was about operative teams between the Public Ministry and the intelligrnce services, but I have always raised the following issue: this protocol does not exist, I did not assume it and we do not go forward with such enginnering, so to say, because they cannot be found in the Code of Criminal Procedure. Oh, God! … We investigate, and you judge taking into account the Code of Criminal Procedure. There is nothing alse which may be called a mixed team or I do not know what”, underestimates Augustin Lazar, the general prosecutor, the serious problem of the interefernce of SRI in the Justice.
The legal experts of SRI, involved not only in investigations, but also in the criminal procedure
Let us come back to the Report of 2013 which seems the most loose on the matter of institutional language. They say there some things which deserve to be analyzed with the pen in hand. I give you one more example:
Chapter 2.3
2.3.The information and the referral of the bodies of investigation and criminal pursuit
An important coordinate of the cooperation with the bodies of criminal pursuit was represented by the transmittal of the data, information and documents required by them, for the needs of the criminal investigation, as well as the settlement of certain requests, within the context being relevant also the diversification of the sphere of the activities in which the legal experts of SRI are involved, in the sense that the joint analyses are not limited only to aspects of material law (the investigation of meeting of the constitutive elements of crimes), but they were extended to procedure problems.”
I will be damned, what do they mean by the experts of SRI were cooperating in procedure problems with the Bodies? …
The joint analyses with extended character, not only material, meaning the way in which we transform the informative notes into indictments, how we make the framework, how we write the accusation act, how we handle all the elements in the Tactic Field of SRI general Dumbrava …
How extended is the cooperation between SRI – DNA – DIICOT – the Prosecution Office according to the same SRI Report? Let the BODIES explain us black-on-white:
“The experts in the legal domain of the Service, within the territorial and central structures, were co-opted as members in joint operative teams of cooperation with the local and central structures of the bodied of application of the law in 463 cases (as against 314 in 2012).
Within the joint operative teams many meetings took place, within which the experts in the legal domain of SRI fulfilled a significant role in the legal assessment of the operative situation and of the measures proposed for the documentation of criminal activities.
In this context they continuously acted, by exercising specific competences, in the direction of the increase of the usage value of the informational product destined to the information of the bodies of criminal pursuit, both as regards the assurance of a foundation for reaching of the objective afferent to the protection of the security values, and the consolidation of the Service’s role as regards combating of the criminal phenomena which seriously affect, on various components, the national security.
They determined positiive effects and reactions at the level of the beneficiaries, many of the materials being exploited within the evidence in the criminal files.”
More than 460 cases, as against 314 in 2012…
If this is not an extended activity, then I wonder what a restrained one means. And the final sentence with the exploitation of SRI materials within the criminal evidence, appreciated by the beneficiaries,, meaning DNA, DIICOT, the General Prosecution, deserves a prize for concision and expressivity.
At the level of the Service, within the activities regarding the steps of information/intimation of the local and central structures of the bodies of application of the law, a special attention was granted to the increase of the expertise and optimization of te process of legal assurance.
As well, they acted in order to obtain a high usage value of the informational product destined to the empowered institutions as regards the criminal instruction of the infractional phenomena which seriously affect the national security.
A special accent was put on the increase of the quality of the consistency of the data and information made available to the bodies of application of the law and, resepctively of the promptnerss in the transmittal of the information regarding the performance of crimes to thje bodies of criminal pursuit, in order to avoid the loss of certain operative moments and oportunities in the plane of probation.
Furthermore, in many cases, the experts in the legal domain of the Service (at the central and local level) were co-opted in joint operative teams constituted at the level of certain structures of the bodies of investigation and criminal pursuit.
In 2013, the forms of cooperation with the institutions signatory of the General Cooperation Protocol were intensified and diversified, the main characteristic being represented by the positive dynamics and increase of the degree of thoroughness of the data which made the object of the information transmitted by SRI, in parallel with the orientation of the measures to realistic cases, complex actions and high level targets.
Daniel Morar did not appreciate the information of SRI
A last public question gets an answer in the same official documents of SRI: Since whet does the existence of the Binomial last and on the basis of which document?
Here is the answer!
The General Cooperation Protocol was the basis of the cooperation of SRI with DNA – DIICOT – the Prosecution Office, and the mixed teams and the joint plans of action were only one aspect.
Aspect which cannot be found in the report for 2014, which defines the institutional cooperation in a completely different way:
“As regards the exchange of information, the most consistent cooperation was achieved with the Ministry of Administration and Interior, the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of National Defence, the External Intelligence Service, the Protection and Guard Service, the Service of Special Communications”, without mentioning the Public Ministry (DNA-DIICOT – the Prosecution Office) among the privileged partners.
One of the reading keys of this situation must be found in the relationships which existed between Daniel Morar, the former chief prosecutor of DNA (2005-2012), the heads of SRI – George Maior and Florian Coldea and Laura Codruta Kovesi – the general prosecutor of Romania (2006 – 2012). Under the eyes and with the approval of Traian Basescu, Romania’s president, Daniel Morar refused to receive only pieces of information from SRI, each time asking to be furnished the entire content of the information, including the recordings performed on the mandate of national security.
TRAIAN BASESCU ON THE TENSIONS BETWEEN SRI – MORAR
“Morar worked very little with records, he worked on thye files with evidence. What interceptations did you see in the file of Adrian Nastase? These were environmental interceptations made by DNA. And in the file of the vice prime minister Copos? Or in the file of the former minister of Agriculture Ioan Muresan? For Remes there was a reccording performed by DGIPI (…) Morar was the type of prosecutor diligent and extremely exigen t with the evidence, this is what I liked at him. What did I not like? He had little shows with arrests at the Ministry of Interior, then I publicly reacted, justice must be somber (…) SRI had a minimal role during the mandate of daniel Morar ”, affirmed Traian Basescu.
According to certain sources from SRI, Daniel Morar had a bad opinion on the way in which the information from SRI was sent to him, it seems that he had verified some of them and he saw that there are manipulations of the information.
As result of the conflict between SRI – Daniel Morar, at Cotroceni Palace a meeting took place in the presence of Romania’s president Traian Basescu in which Morar, Maior, Coldea had a rough quarrel. From that moment a state of accentuated animosity began between them.
ABOUT THE BINOMIAL
“Never in the press releases of DNA, while I was the chief of DNA, there was no “This file was aqchieved with the support of SRI.” Because a file is achieved with the support of many people. Even the guardian from the company who let you enter to maqke the search supported you. No, this is not the sense. Furthermore, such a support is not necessary more than … Then, I have always considered that the job of the prosecutors is something and the job of SRI is something else …”, interview in Adevarul.
From the analysis of the figures which indicate the flow of information transmitted to the institutions of investigation and criminal pursuit, we can see how in 2006, the first year when it is mentioned in the SRI report the inclusion of corruption as mission of SRI, the National Anti-Corruption Department/Directorate receives 183 information, DIITCOT – 277 information, and the General Prosecutor of the Prosecution Office within the High Court of Cassation and Justice – 32, we reach an explosion! Year by year this report is maintained, indicating a preference of SRI for the structures managed by Kovesi, in the4 disadvantage of DNA managed by Daniel Morar, until the switch takes place. Then we can see how SRI is main provider of information for DNA.
In 2014, DNA receives 1,226 information, DIICOT receives 826, only 126 information being dedicated to the Prosecution Office within the High Court of Cassation and Justice;
DANIEL MORAR ABOUT THE ROLE OF SRI
When I managed DNA, SRI had a role, let’s not say peripheral, but it had a role within the limits of the law. What the law said is that the intelligence services – now everybody takes SRI into account because it is the most active – must send to the Prosecution Offices all the information which they obtain within their specific activity. The SRI Officers who send information to the prosecution offices make no favour to anyone – either to this country, or to DNA, because they are obliged by the law. The other task of the intelligence service – in this case of SRI – is that of assuring the logistic support for interceptions because they hold the entire logistics for interceptions in Romania and all the interceptions are performed using the logistics of SRI. Here must be established the activity and involvement of SRI in th fight against corruption. Because when after 1990 the judicial tasks were taken from the intelligence services an elementary thing was had in view: you may not be in the same time a holder of certain enormous, important information and also to be allowed to make criminal files. Because then you would have too much power. That is why, anti-corruption is in the total and express responsibility of prosecutors and police officers, such as Justice – in the respect of this discussion, how the SRI officers follow up the files until the end – is entirely the duty of judges. Consequently, they do not have the legitimacy either constitutional or legal of doing more that what I tell you - interview in Adevarul.