Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice, equivalent to the UK’s Supreme Court, fully acquitted Gabriel ‘Puiu’ Popoviciu in a ruling on 15 January 2025.
This ruling is final and irrevocable and it maintains the Bucharest Court of Appeal resolution from July 2024, through which all the defendants were acquitted in the case surrounding the Băneasa shopping, office and residential development.
In her July 2024 ruling, Judge Liana Arsenie, the head of the Court of Appeal, had exonerated Popoviciu, along with the other ten defendants in the case. In the judgment she handed down, she was critical of prosecutor Nicolae Marin (of Romania’s National Anti-Corruption Directorate, known as the DNA) and his conduct in the case. Her ruling, all of which was reconfirmed this week in the High Court of Cassation and Justice, was that she was ordering the acquittal of all 11 defendants on the grounds that that the alleged offences do not exist. As Judge Arsenie explained at the time, “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 completely fabricated by prosecutor Nicolae Marin. The July 2024 acquittal judgement came as a result of the review and retrial of the case and firmly concluded that the defendants were convicted abusively. The January 2025 decision by Romania’s Supreme Court, upholding the full acquittal of the defendants, was the very final step in the legal process. There can be no doubt that, after an 18-year long legal ordeal, Popoviciu and his fellow defendants have won a resounding victory in their case.
The legal battle had not been limited to Romania. In July 2023, the UK’s Supreme Court discharged Romania’s extradition request for him. That was the UK court’s final decision on the matter and meant that Popoviciu would not be extradited to Romania. That final UK outcome followed the 11 June 2021 decision by London’s High Court to refuse Popoviciu’s extradition to Romania. In that ruling, British judge Lord Justice Holroyde stated: “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 said that Popoviciu would suffer a “flagrant denial of justice” if sent back to serve his sentence in Romania.
The director of a Brussels-based human rights group commented: “This was a robust decision, building on and confirming the Bucharest Court of Appeal’s ruling last July, as well as earlier decisions in the UK courts in Mr Popoviciu’s favour. However, for those of us focused on human rights within the European Union, there is concern that Mr Popoviciu suffered such an injustice and indeed what several courts have now ruled was persecution at the hands of a prosecutor. Such abuse of the legal system does not belong in an EU country, one that is now even a member of the Schengen area.”
