Head of Romania’s Department for Emergency Situations says prosecutor abused powers in alleged fictitious employment case

The head of Romania's Department for Emergency Situations (DSU), Raed Arafat, claimed in a video posted on Facebook that the case concerning fictitious employment contracts at the institution he heads was fabricated.

The DSU head said that official checks "confirmed that the prosecutor artificially established jurisdiction in the case by invoking a fabricated factual circumstance." The discovery “dismantles the foundation on which the entire case was built,” Arafat argued.

According to him, based on these "artificial premises," the prosecutor conducted investigations for more than a year without the targeted persons being informed and without them being able to exercise their procedural rights.

At the same time, Arafat added, "the same allegations" were used to obtain "authorization for technical surveillance measures with the highest degree of intrusion." The surveillance lasted 5 months.

"The escalation of the measures did not stop there. The prosecutor also requested authorization for house searches against the investigated persons. However, the judge at the Court of Appeal found these requests to be manifestly disproportionate and rejected them. Instead of accepting the legality review exercised by the court, the prosecutor ordered the forcible seizure of the mobile phones belonging to all 13 targeted persons, obtaining by another route what the court had refused to authorize," Arafat explained.

The DSU chief said that considerable human, logistical, and financial resources were consumed to support a case built on fabricated premises, instead of being directed toward combating real criminal acts.

On March 27, prosecutors conducted searches at the headquarters of the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU) in a case reportedly involving fictitious employment. Subsequently, Raed Arafat "categorically" denied the existence of any possible fictitious employment of doctors within the institution and announced that he had cooperated and would continue to cooperate with investigators.

According to Arafat, the case concerns four doctors and one nurse, all "with extensive experience," employed part-time at the DSU, whom the prosecutor claims were paid without performing the work for which they had been hired. To counter the claims, DSU representatives sent the Military Prosecutor's Office "44 binders containing 20,000 pages demonstrating that the attendance records showed they worked both remotely and physically," and nearly 8,000 pages demonstrating that the people delivered materials, that they worked, and communicated by email, including at midnight."

"In no way can we speak of fraud or fictitious work, as has been claimed," Arafat also said.

Arafat is also included in another case handled by the military section of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in connection with the 2017 purchase of a helicopter for EUR 4 million, for which VAT allegedly had not been paid. The alleged damage is estimated at approximately EUR 1 million. The DSU head denied any wrongdoing.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Raed Arafat on Facebook) ...