2 November 2015

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

The Public Information and Media Relations Office within the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice is authorized to bring to public knowledge the following:

Prosecutors of the Section of criminal investigation and criminalistics within the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice ordered that the following defendants be taken into custody:

for having committed the crimes of manslaughter, laid down under art. 192 par. 3 of the Criminal Code.

As regards the crimes the defendants are accused of having committed, we shall make the following mentions:

By way of the ordinance of the 31st of October 2015, prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest Tribunal, after having been notified that in the premises of the Colectiv Club a fire broke out which led to the death of several persons, others suffering bodily injuries, started the criminal investigation for the crimes of aggravated murder and aggravated destruction so as to determine the circumstances and occurrences in which the crimes were committed.

The information and evidence subsequently gathered led to the conclusion that the fire broke out as a result of the fact that the persons who managed the place invited and allowed the access of a number of persons exceeding by far the limits of the club, in the circumstances in which the space didn’t have several emergency exits, as well as putting up a pyrotechnical show (fireworks) indoors, considering the interior design improper to such activities, characterized by the existence of easily flammable materials, set in place by breaching the legal provisions so as to avoid additional costs (decorative objects and objects used for soundproofing on the prop pillars, on the walls and ceiling, and the soundproof wall respectively), which resulted in the death and bodily injury of several persons who were in the club.

Considering the circumstances in which the crime was committed, as it results from the evidence gathered up to this moment of the criminal investigation, one can point out the form of guilt of the culpability, and not the intention, reason for which the prosecution decided to alter, by way of the ordinance of November the 2nd 2015, the legal qualification of the crimes, from aggravated murder according to art. 189 par. 1 of the Criminal Code to manslaughter, according to art. 192 par. 3 of the Criminal Code.

By means of the motivated ordinance of November the 2nd, 2015, the prosecutors decided to continue the criminal investigation against Grancea Paul Cãtãlin, Anastasescu George Alin and Mincu Costin, managers of SC Colectiv Club SRL, for having committed the crimes of manslaughter and involuntary bodily injury.

 

We mention that the initiation of the criminal investigation and the setting in motion of the criminal action are stages of the criminal procedure regulated by the Code of Criminal Procedure, meant to create the procedural framework necessary to gather the evidence, activities which cannot, under any circumstances, breach the principle of the presumption of innocence.