REPORT
on the case of Teodor-Cicerone Nartea

On December 7, 2000, two representatives of APADOR-CH visited the Bucharest-Jilava Penitentiary to discuss with the convict Teodor-Cicerone Nartea.

In the evening of October 12, 2000, Teodor-Cicerone Nartea was the victim of an abusive behaviour of two police officers from the 10th police station from Bucharest. While waiting in front of the "Bucuresti" department store for his friend, Horia Matei, to come back from a fast food restaurant where he had entered to buy him something to eat, Nartea was unexpectedly beaten by two unknown persons, dressed in plain clothes. The two persons hit the victim repeatedly with their fists and feet (especially in the chest and face). Taken by surprise, Nartea did not manage to defend himself in any way, so that he was soon heavily bleeding and fell down, almost unconscious. The aggressors handcuffed him, put him in a car and took him to the 10th police station (only when he was handcuffed, Nartea realised that the attackers were police officers). In order to make him admit the deeds they were accusing him, all the way to the police station, the police officers continued to hit and threaten him, including that he would be subject to electric shocks.

Due to his serious condition (he was accusing major pains and blood was flowing from his face wounds), Nartea was taken from the 10th police station to the Bucharest Police Headquarters to see a doctor. From here, he was taken to the Policlinic of the Interior Minister, where he was examined and he received the appropriate care (from the moment of the aggression to the time we has taken to the policlinic over nine hours had passed). According to the victim, the hemithoracic x-ray showed that he had one broken rib and one fissured rib on the right side. The doctors also ascertained an open cut lesion and hematoma of the right cheek, with the nasal septum affected, and, according to Teodor-Cicerone Nartea, recorded them in the consultation register of the policlinic. Although the victim asked the doctors for a medical certificate, they refused and told him that the records in the policlinic's documents were sufficient. However, the representatives of APADOR-CH noticed that the medical chart from the penitentiary file recorded only a "fissure of the right 9th rib". From the aggression date until his placement in a penitentiary, Nartea was hold for a month in the lockup of the 10th police station. During the incidents whose victim he was, the suit Nartea was wearing was destroyed and his cellular phone and the Lei 500,000 he was carrying on him had disappeared.

The detainee denied he had committed the deed he was accused of (the theft from a car of 15 audio cassettes and a screwdriver) and he complained that no lawyer was present either when the order for police custody or the warrant was issued (his request to personally call a lawyer to defend him was also categorically denied). For this reason he refused to give any written statement to his investigators. Since he did not know that the investigation of such abuses falls under the competence of the Military Prosecutor's Office, on December 1, Nartea complained about what had happened to the Prosecutor's Office near the 3rd District Court. Following the visit of the representatives of APADOR-CH he decided to file a complaint the same day to the Military Prosecutor's Office.

The representatives of APADOR-CH also discussed with the convict Ilie Nicolaescu, who was in the lockup of the 10th police station in the night of October 12-13, 2000, in the same room where Nartea was taken. He stated that when he was placed in the room, he "had the left cheek broken, blood was flowing on his face, he had swollen and turgid eyes and several bumps on the head". For several days Nicolaescu had taken care of Nartea, who accused major pains, especially in the area of the ribs where he was hit. He also mentioned the beating of the persons held in the 10th police station.

Conclusions
APADOR-CH considers that there are strong indications that Teodor-Cicerone Nartea was the victim of the aggression and inhuman treatment of the police officers from the 10th police station, including the delay of providing him the medical care. In addition to that, there are indications that torture techniques are used inside the 10th police station (serious bodily harm, threat of using electric shocks) in order to determine the investigated persons to admit they committed various deeds. The fact that only the fissure of one rib was recorded at the Policlinic of the Interior Ministry in Nartea's medical chart, since there is at least one witness confirming that the harm suffered by the aggressed person were both more numerous and more serious, suggests the attempt of the medical staff belonging to the same military system as the aggressor police officers to make their situation easier in the case of possible investigations.

APADOR-CH considers that the fact that Teodor-Cicerone Nartea was denied legal counsel in the issuing of the police custody orders and arrest warrant has, at least for the stage of penal indictment, the meaning of an unfair trial. In the same time, there are reasons to believe that the denial of any contact between Nartea and a lawyer in the first few days after the aggression aimed at hiding the abusive behaviour of the police officers.

Manuela Stefanescu
Valerian Stan