Gabriel (Puiu) Popoviciu has been fully acquitted by Bucharest’s Court of Appeal after an 18 year legal ordeal in the case surrounding the Băneasa shopping, office and residential development.
Popoviciu was exonerated along with the other ten defendants in the case. Judge Liana Arsenie, the head of the Court of Appeal, handed down her judgment this month, which included a stinging critique of prosecutor Nicolae Marin (of Romania’s National Anti-Corruption Directorate, known as the DNA) and his conduct in the case.
Judge Liana Arsenie explained that she was ordering the acquittal of all 11 defendants on the grounds that that the alleged offences do not exist. She went on to explain how prosecutor Nicolae Marin had fabricated the case: “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 Marin Nicolae. The July 2024 acquittal judgement comes as a result of the review and retrial of the case and firmly concludes that the defendants were convicted abusively.
The decision at the Court of Appeal in Romania followed another related court win for Popoviciu in the United Kingdom. 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 will not be extradited to Romania. That final 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.
A French lawyer based in Bucharest said: “It’s positive for Romania that this case has finally been resolved. Vindictive and fabricated prosecutions have no place in the European Union.”