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România, condamnată din nou pentru condițiile din închisori

02/04/2014/in Comunicate, /by Rasista

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Curtea Europeană a Drepturilor Omului (CEDO) s-a pronunţat ieri, 1 aprilie 2014, în cauza Rădulescu c. României (32800/012) şi a condamnat statul român pentru că i-a încălcat cetățeanului Aurel Rădulescu dreptului de a nu fi supus unui tratament degradant. Reclamantul a fost susţinut în demersurile sale de APADOR-CH.

Rădulescu s-a plâns Curţii Europene de condiţiile de detenție din penitenciarele Rahova si Jilava, precum și cele din Sectia 15 Politie din București. Curtea a constatat că plângerile reclamantului – referitoare la supraaglomerarea din penitenciar și la lipsa condițiilor de igienă – sunt confirmate şi de raportul Comitetului pentru Prevenirea Torturii (CPT), dar și de Rapoarte privind condițiile de detenție realizate de APADOR-CH în urma vizitelor de monitorizare în aresturi și penitenciare.

Curtea Europeană a constatat că reclamantul a fost supus unui tratament degradant, în urma suferinţei ce i-a fost cauzată de condiţiile de deţinere din penitenciar, în consecinţă a admis că a existat o încălcare a articolului 3 al Convenţiei europene privind drepturile omului.

Textul integral al hotărârii este disponibil pe site-ul www.echr.coe.int.

Pentru detalii: Nicoleta Popescu- avocat APADOR-CH, telefon 0733.078.723

(Aurel Rădulescu, foto Mediafax)

Report on the visit to the Center for Preventive Arrest and Detention attached to the Constanţa County Police Inspectorate

22/11/2013/in Aresturi /by Rasista

On November 22, 2013, two representatives of APADOR-CH visited the Center for Preventive Arrest and Detention (CPAD) in Constanţa County. The previous visit to this facility had taken place in 2009.

The representatives of the Association noted that one of the most serious problems found during their previous visit had still not been addressed. More precisely, APADOR-CH noted that video surveillance cameras were still installed and functioning in every room of the police custody facility. The Association reminds that such a measure is a serious violation of the right to private life for persons held in detention or on preventive arrest. Video cameras may be installed on the corridors and even should be installed in investigation rooms, but under no circumstances may they be placed in detention rooms, lavatories or medical offices. It must be said that each room at the Constanţa CPAD had an alert system, so it could not be argued that surveillance cameras were necessary to ensure the physical “security” of detainees. Nor could it be argued that they compensated for the lack of personnel, since the facility had 31 employees.

The persons in charge said that video surveillance was off in women’s rooms. At the time of the visit, only one woman was detained at CPAD Constanța, in a two bed room. Indeed, the monitors showed no images from that particular room, only carrying the message VIDEO LOST. However, there was no certainty that the respective camera was permanently deactivated. APADOR-CH asks the General Police Inspectorate to immediately and definitively cease the permanent video surveillance of detention rooms by taking away all cameras. Whatever the legal grounds for installing the cameras, they represent a flagrant violation of ECHR standards regarding the right to private life and therefore can be considered degrading treatment.

1. Population, detention spaces, sanitary conditions, food

On the day of the visit, the facility held 45 detainees, of whom 36 adult males, 8 minors and one female. Five of them were convicted, while the rest were on preventive arrest. CPAD Constanța had 13 detention rooms totaling about 180 sq. m, including the lavatory

(a toilet cabin, a sink and a shower). The facility also had a supervisors’ club, a medical office, a detainees’ club (a former detention room with a TV set), a search room and a storage room where kitchenware was kept.

The facility was located in the semi-basement. The thick bars on the small windows did not allow for enough natural light or ventilation. As a result, the walls already looked moldy although they were last whitewashed in 2012. The lavatories were in a very bad state. CPAD Constanța had a constant supply of cold and hot water, just like the rest of the Police Inspectorate building, so that detainees could have a hot shower at all times and rooms were sufficiently heated.

The facility did only provide a bed, pillow, blanket and sheets. All other necessary sanitary items – soap, toothpaste, shaving cream, toilet paper and detergent – were either brought in by detainees with the rest of their personal belongings, provided by their families or purchased by detainees. In that respect, one practice had improved from the previous visit: supervisors at CPAD Constanţa now helped detainees purchase the goods they needed. Another positive aspect worth mentioning was that food was still prepared in a small kitchen by two employees of the Police Inspectorate. The kitchen and storage were very clean and rather well equipped. On the day of the visit, the menu included vegetable soup and pork with beans. The food and the bread awaiting distribution looked and smelled good.

Medical care

Three doctors and two nurses attended to the detainees. According to the doctor on duty at the time of the visit, the medical staff provided 24/7 presence and the necessary medication was available. The staff said there had been no problems of drug abuse, only cases of acute alcoholic intoxication – when arrest was usually denied and the suspect was sent to a hospital. If a person brought into the facility complained of being brutalized, the doctor in charge of the examination made a mention in the medical record and notified the prosecutor. The most frequent conditions of arrestees were mental disorders, cardio-vascular problems and respiratory infections. There was no ongoing HIV/hepatitis prevention program (more precisely, no condoms were distributed and no methadone substitution treatment was available). The only female detainee at CPAD Constanța was pregnant at the time of the visit. She was regularly seen by a gynecologist at a civilian hospital (the detainee confirmed and said she was happy about the way she was treated).

Activities

Detainees had the right to go on a hour-long walk every day They could use the three exercise yards, which were small and partly covered, but had no equipment whatsoever, so that the only activity was to walk a few steps to and fro. APADOR-CH asks the Police Inspectorate once again to install some simple equipment (like fixed bars) in the yards, in order to allow detainees to get some exercise.

As an improvement from the previous visit, rooms were now equipped with TVs that detainees were allowed to watch at all times. A club-room also existed, but no activities were organized there, so detainees preferred to sit in their rooms.

Correspondence and visitation

In what concerns the violation of the right to confidentiality, the situation at CPAD Constanța had remained unchanged since the previous visit. All mail – both incoming and outgoing – was registered. If the registration of incoming mail could be justified as a proof that the letters were actually delivered to detainees, there was no justification for registering sent mail. APADOR-CH asks the Police Inspectorate to take steps to put an end to this procedure.

The payphone used by detainees was located in the supervisors’ office, with the former being present during the conversations. The office was small, so it was impossible for supervisors not to hear everything detainees said. APADOR-CH recommends that a phone booth should be installed in a different location, allowing detainees to hold their conversations in full confidentiality.

The visitation sector, located outside the facility, consisted of one room (also under video surveillance) equipped with 6 separated cabins and one table for the meetings with the lawyers. The Association requires assurances that the encounters between minors and their families took place around a table.

Discussions with detainees

Room 10 (18 sq. m/10 beds installed) held six adult males who declared that the food was very good and that the staff behaved properly. They complained about the dim light and the lack of activity, which made them somnolent, sometimes unable to realize if it was day or night time. Three of the arrestees were actually asleep during the visit, around 11 a.m.

Five of the minors stayed in Room 6 (about 15 sq. m/5 beds installed). One of them showed clear signs that he had not been able to adapt to the prison environment (his voice was shaking, he seemed ready to burst into tears). Another minor, who had been held at CPAD Constanța for 10 months because he had no ID papers, was eager to be moved to a penitentiary to serve his time (he was already convicted). APADOR-CH points out that minors are a vulnerable category and asks the chiefs of the facility to provide psychological counselling and social/educational activities.

The only female detainee was in her third semester of pregnancy and occupied the room closest to the supervisor’s office – a six-bed room of about 12 sq. m. APADOR-CH recommends that part of the unused beds should be removed, to ensure minimum space to move around. The woman had one complaint: that the toilet was insalubrious.

Conclusions:

APADOR-CH asks for the surveillance cameras to be removed from detention rooms. Their presence indicates a clear violation of the right to private life, which needs to be observed even in the case of persons who are deprived of freedom;
The Association asks for immediate steps to be taken in order to observe the right to confidentiality of mail and phone conversations;
The sanitization of lavatories must be completed with celerity.

Other conclusions and recommendations have been included in the report.

Maria-Nicoleta Andreescu Dollores Benezic

Report on the visit to the Center for Preventive Arrest and Detention attached to the Galaţi County Police Inspectorate

21/11/2012/in Aresturi /by Rasista

Two representatives of APADOR-CH visited the Galaţi County Police custody facility on November 21, 2012.

1. Detention spaces – location, furbishing, population, staff

The Center for Preventive Arrest and Detention (CPAD) was located on the premises of the Police Inspectorate and occupied three floors in one wing of the building. Detention rooms occupied two levels, on the first and second floor. The rooms on the ground floor were used as storage or for activities such as fingerprinting. One of the rooms is a “club” for the members of the staff.

The two detention levels included 12 rooms and one confinement room, which, according to the management, had not been used for a long time. At the time of the visit, the confinement room was used as a storage room for the luggage of detainees. On each level, there were six rooms – 4 measuring 12 sq m and two measuring 9. The total surface of detention spaces at CPAD Galaţi was 132 sq m. This space held 57 beds, all of them occupied at the time of the visit. Therefore, each detainee had 2.31 sq m of personal space, much less (about half) of the minimal standard of 4 sq meters recommended by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT). The Galaţi CPAD was therefore overcrowded. The chief of the facility even said that he had recently faced the situation when more than 57 detainees had to be put up, so some of them had to share a bed. APADOR-CH considers this intolerable and asks for urgent steps to remediate the situation.

Detention rooms had lavatories of about one square meter, consisting of a Turkish toilet and a showerhead above it. The lavatories were insalubrious. The walls were full of mould and the metal pieces were rusty. A poignant stench of ammonia from the toilets filled the rooms. In the rooms visited by APADOR-CH, detainees had placed PET bottles filled with water into the toilet holes.

Although the rooms were located on the first and second floor, natural lighting was poor (especially of the lower floor) because of the thick wire nets at the windows, and therefore electric lights stayed on throughout the day. APADOR-CH recommends that one layer of wire net should be removed, to allow natural lighting. The rooms were properly aired, because detainees were able to open and close the windows at all times.

Two of the detainees – the “dish boys” – had under care a room with four fridges and some shelves, where detainees could keep the food they received from home. Detainees could request and receive hot water for tea or coffee.

Detention rooms at CPAD Galaţi were equipped with a visual alert system and with TV in good working state. There were no video surveillance cameras in the facility. Three modern vans (Ford Transit) specially equipped for escort missions serviced the facility.

On the day of the visit, all 57 detainees were male, 55 adults and two young detainees (aged 18-21). The police custody facility in Galaţi occasionally held women or minors, but only for short periods of time, after which they were speedily transferred to specialized detention units, usually those in the vicinity. According to the chief of the facility, the average stay at CPAD Galaţi was three months.

The Galaţi police custody facility was staffed by 30 people, including the chief. Four members of the staff were women and, according to the chief, most of them were graduates of the police school, specialized in “custody”.

2. Food, medical care, hygiene.

The food for the CPAD was provided by the Galaţi Penitentiary. Detainees said that most of the time food was so bad they could not touch it. They ate food brought by their families or – if they had money – bought for them by the staff.

A medical cabinet functioned at CPAD Galaţi and, according to the chief of the facility, a GP doctor offered daily consultations. At the time of the visit, a medical assistant was present. Detainees said they were seen by the doctor each time they required, on the same day. According to the staff, in case of a medical emergency they called 112.

CPAD Galaţi did not run any program for the prevention of HIV/hepatitis infection. If an arrestee was a drug user, the facility asked the support of the National Antidrug Agency, which provides psychological counseling (no other type of intervention, like substitute treatment, was not available). APADOR-CH recommends to the chiefs of the facility to consider disease prevention programs.

Hot and cold water was available around the clock (utilities were provided equally to the whole Police Inspectorate building). CPAD Galaţi did not provide any type of hygiene products, although the law required it. This could lead to humiliating situations for arrestees who had no money and were not visited by the family (they could be in the unpleasant position of asking for toilet paper, for instance). Anyway, the lavatories described above were more like sources of infection than facilities for personal hygiene.

3. Contact with the outside, other rights

Detainees at CPAD Galaţi had the right to make two phone calls per week (to numbers they had to declare in advance) and to call they lawyers as often as they wanted, as long as they had money (on the phone card). The phones (two) were not placed properly as to ensure the confidentiality of the conversations. They were on a corridor, next to the guard’s office, and had no booth.

Mail was confidential. Detainees were able to post their letters personally into a mailbox placed on the way to the exercise yard. The in-coming mail was registered – mentioning only the fact that it had arrived, not the sender. Letters were opened by the supervisor, in the presence of the receiver, only to check the contents of the envelope, but not read.

Visits and meetings with lawyers took place in a room outside the facility (also used for investigations), one floor above. The room was not properly equipped to ensure visual surveillance only. It had a table and several chairs, one of which was permanently occupied by a guard throughout family visits. A lawyer who was present at the time of the visit told the representatives of APADOR-CH that the guard went out of the room, if requested, during the visits of the lawyers. The Association recommends that a visual surveillance system should be installed by inserting a window pane viewer into the door.

The facility had two exercise yards, one on each level. The one on the first floor measured about 12 square meters and the one on the second about 15. The yards had no equipment or furniture whatsoever, in fact they were mere rooms without roofs, so detainees could not do anything else but walk to and fro. The persons who talked to the representatives of the Association said they went to the exercise yard every day, for one hour. APADOR-CH suggests that yards should be equipped with minimum support for physical exercise, like horizontal bars, for instance.

If they had money, detainees were able to purchase certain goods, by making a list in the morning. One member of the staff went to a nearby store and bought the requested items.

The liaison judge for the CPAD was the same in charge with the Galaţi Penitentiary. He had no regular hours at the custody facility, where he only came once a month or when his presence was requested, usually when a detainee went on hunger strike. The information on the liaison judge was not posted anywhere in the facility, so detainees did not know exactly how to get to see him. During the visit in the rooms, detainees said they did not know who the judge was. The Association recommends that the name and contact of the judge should be posted in a visible place, as well as contacts for other public institutions of interest.

4. Procedure matters – handcuffing and searches

CPAD Galaţi still used handcuffing as a current procedure, despite the provisions of Law no. 275/2006 on the execution of custodial sentences and of other measures taken by the judiciary during criminal trials; the law stipulated that handcuffing should be an exception, not the rule. Even women and minors were handcuffed (in pairs, one by the right hand and one by the left) every time they were taken outside the facility. APADOR-CH reminds that the functioning regulations for police custody facilities, supposed to update the procedures in accordance with Law no. 275/2006, were not yet issued.

Personal searches upon arrival at CPAD Galaţi was usually performed in the first floor exercise yard, or on the corridor when it was cold outside. In the opinion of the Association, this was a humiliating procedure, because stripping a person in a partially open space, like the yard, and especially on the corridor, is tantamount to exposure in intimate postures bound to create discomfort. APADOR-CH recommends that body searches should be conducted in a closed area (room).

5. Discussions with the detainees

The representatives of APADOR-CH talked to arrestees in three rooms. In Room 5, on the first floor, 12 sq m plus lavatory, there were six men in six beds. In Room 6, on the first floor, 9 sq m, there were four men in four beds and in Room 12, on the second floor, there were six beds, all of them occupied. The detainees complained only of the bad food and of the fetid stench in the rooms.

Conclusions and recommendations:

The main problem of the custody facility of the Galaţi Police Inspectorate was overcrowding. The discomfort caused by overcrowding was aggravated by the insalubrious lavatories and the absence of adequate natural lighting. The Association asks for urgent measures to remediate the overcrowding issue, a possible solution being to organize some of the service spaces on the ground floor as detention rooms. APADOR-CH also asks for the renovation and sanitization of the lavatories.

The confidentiality of phone calls and of conversations during family visits was not observed at CPAD Galaţi. The Association considers that this issue could be solved with minor investments, like placing a viewer on the door and Plexiglas panes around the phones.

APADOR-CH asks again that the current practice of handcuffing arrestees should be renounced and reminds that, according to the law, the use of handcuffs is allowed only in exceptional situations.

Other conclusions and recommendations have been included in the report.

Maria-Nicoleta Andreescu Doina-Adelina Boboşatu

Report on the police custody facility attached to Police Station no. 9 in Bucharest – the Florin Urzică case-

14/03/2012/in Abuzuri ale forțelor de ordine, Aresturi /by Rasista

On March 6, 2012, two representatives of APADOR-CH visited the custody facility attached to Police Station no. 9, in the 2^nd district of Bucharest. The main purpose of the visit was to meet, Florin Urzică, whose case was brought to the attention of the Association by a close friend of his, who visited Urzică after his arrest and claimed that policemen beat him until “they broke his neck”.

During their visit, the representatives of APADOR-CH talked to Florin Urzică, to other detainees, to the facility staff, and analyzed the changes in detention conditions after their previous visit to the facility, on November 9, 2011. Also in connection with the Urzică case, the representatives of the Association tried to contact a security agent who had witnessed one of the violent episodes, but found that he was out of town. They also asked verbal information from the registry office of Police Station no. 9 regarding the time and date when Florin Urzică was brought in, but the agent on duty refused to provide the information, saying he was obeying orders from the chief of the station. On March 12, the representatives of the Association went back to Police Station no. 9, where they talked to the chief of the custody facility, to clarify some aspects of the case.

In what concerns detention conditions, they were slightly improved in comparison with the Association’s previous visit. One improvement consisted of moving the phone (which had been out of order on November 9) from the agents’ office to the corridor. Detainees are now supervised during their conversation by the agent who oversees the exercise yard, from a position that ensures, at least theoretically, the confidentiality of phone calls. Another improvement noted on the March 12 visit was the stricter observance of the secret of correspondence. The mobile mail box is now taken to each room, so that detainees are able to post their letters personally, and the mailman goes personally to the underground to pick up the mail.

Until the previous visit, on March 6, detainees had to hand their envelopes to the agents, who introduced them in the box, and then took the box upstairs for the mailman to empty. The intermediary role of agents has been eliminated, which means an extra guarantee of the confidentiality of correspondence.

The rest of the findings made by APADOR-CH, as well as the recommendations of the 2011 report were still valid. Essentially: rooms were small and lacking natural light (a still unsolved problem, also noted in the 2010 Report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture – CPT); food, provided by the Rahova Penitentiary, was very poor; the facility did not provide any kind of hygiene and sanitary materials; visits took place in degrading conditions, with no confidentiality. Moreover, like in most custody facilities, handcuffing detainees each time they leave the place is a current practice, instead of being the exception, as the law requires.

The report of the previous visit is available at http://www.apador.org/show_report_nf.php?id=229 .

The Florin Urzică case

On February 29, 2012, Florin Urzică, 42, recently released from prison, was on a street in the National Arena area in Bucharest when, around 10.30-11.00, he was put to the ground and hit by three persons who, as revealed later, were policemen from Police Station no. 9. According to Florin Urzică, they did not ask for an ID nor showed any credentials of their own. Two of them simply held him still on the sidewalk while a third hit him with his tonfa and kicked him, under the eyes of colleagues, but also of passers-by. Eventually, Urzică was handcuffed and “led” to the station in Pantelimon neighborhood. There, he was hit again, by the same policeman (Urzică does not know his name or rank, but as a distinctive sign, he wore a moustache). Urzică claims that at the station he was told why he had been deprived of freedom: the theft of a mobile phone. Urzică claims that he bought the phone from a person whose name he didn’t know, but whom he was able to identify. The purpose of the beating was, according to him, to make him take the blame for several crimes left unsolved.

According to Florin Urzică, he was left on the corridor, in cuffs, for several hours (more precisely 8 hours and 30 minutes, as shown by the retention ordinance signed by the prosecutor for 24 hours, from which the time spent there after being “led to the station” was deducted). During this time, he says, the policemen ate and drank inside the station, in memory of a deceased colleague. APADOR-CH considers that keeping a person, against which excessive force was used with no justification, handcuffed for over 8 hours on a corridor, is tantamount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

The only things that happened during this time was that Urzică signed a document without knowing what it represented and that a public defense attorney arrived, but the suspect never saw her again, neither at the tribunal (when the arrest warrant was issued) nor in court (at the appeal against preventive arrest).

In the evening, at 8.00 p.m., Urzică was taken to the prosecutor’s office, where a retention ordinance was issued. Because he felt increasingly ill, complaining of acute pain in his head, neck and the right side of the body, the prosecutor’s office called an ambulance. He was administered an injection, the ambulance left, but was called again by the same institution shortly after. Urzică was taken to the University Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, where he was seen by different specialist doctors (eye, neurosurgery, orthopedics and emergency doctors). They noted a haematoma on his left eye, trauma with excoriation of the right thigh and crus, a contusion in the renal area, and, what was worse, a strong contusion on the neck, which required a cervical collar. Two of the medical charts filled in the hospital mention the statement of the detainee, that he had been beaten in the morning of February 29 (around 11.00 a.m., as the neurosurgery chart mentions). At 3.00 a.m. on the night of February 29- March 1, Urzică was taken to the DGPMB (Bucharest Police Direction) medical ward, where he was most probably seen by a nurse. Urzică reached the custody facility around 3.15 a.m. and, according to his detainee file, was placed in room no. 1 at 3.30. The trip from the DGPMB medical ward to the Pantelimon station takes about 10 minutes in very low traffic. The conclusion of the Association was that the medical examination lasted only 5 or 6 minutes, which shows superficiality – to say the least – on the part of DGPMB medical staff, in charge with seeing all suspects from Bucharest before they are brought to custody facilities.

When he was brought in, Urzică told the chief of the facility that he had been beaten by the policemen and, according to the chief of custody, the fact was mentioned in the file. The representatives of the Association cannot say whether the file also retained the wording “by policemen”, or simply mentions aggression prior to arrival into custody.

On March 1, Florin Urzică was taken once again to the DGPMB medical ward, where he was seen by a doctor, who prescribed painkillers and an antibiotic. On the same evening, the detainee asked to be seen by a doctor again, because his nose bled. An agent took him right away to the Pantelimon Hospital, which is right next to the police station. Urzică claims that while he was waiting in the on-call room, the policeman who had beaten him the day before (the mustachioed one) burst in, took him out on the corridor, where the agent was waiting, and went in to discuss (?) with the doctor on duty. It is not clear whether the policeman took any paperwork filled by the doctor or what was said inside that office. The incredible action of the policeman took place in view of the agent. A coincidence or not, the latter was out of town for a longer period of time, for a training course, so the representatives of the Association were unable to talk to him.

On March 5, when the representatives of APADOR-CH first talked to the detainee, he was still wearing the cervical collar (he was going to be re-examined 15 days after receiving the brace), had a blue and swollen left eye and several traces of blows on the right leg. Moreover, he complained of strong headaches and pain in the neck, which did not respond even to strong painkillers)

Florin Urzică asked the chiefs of the facility to take him to a forensic doctor, but it was not possible because he could not pay the legal fee for the exam.

The detainee said he wrote complaints about the ill treatment he was submitted to while he was retained, on February 29, as well as about the intimidation and threats from the aggressor. One of the complaints was submitted to the chief of the retention and preventive arrest service of the DGPMB and the second to the chief of Police Station no. 9.

It must be also said that upon leaving the station, the representatives of the Association stopped at the registry office for information on the time when Urzică was brought in, according to the special registry book. The request was deny on grounds it was a work secret. The requested information did not fall under the provisions of Law no. 182/2002 on the protection of classified information. According to that law, work secrets are “information whose release is of nature to cause prejudice to a public-law or private-law legal person”. There is no reason to consider that disclosing the time when a detainee was brought in could harm any legal person. The only grounds for not releasing such information from the facility registry book could be the ones stipulated under article 12, par. 1 letter d and e of Law no. 544/2001, but these are not applicable to the current case. More exactly, the protection of personal data (letter d) cannot be invoked because it was the detainee himself who made a public complaint and agreed to talk to the Association and who was told from the very beginning that this report would be a public document. Letter e is not applicable either, because the mere disclosure of the time when Urzică arrived at the station cannot endanger the results of any criminal or disciplinary investigation. The only explanation for withholding the information might be the secretiveness still marring the Romanian Police.

From the subsequent discussion with the chief of the police station, the representatives of APADOR-CH understood the following:

a) Florin Urzică was caught red-handed during a break-in. it was not clear whether the suspect had already committed the break-in or was on the point of breaking in. The fact is that Urzică’s restraining, the tonfa blows and the kicking, as well as handcuffing took place outside, on the sidewalk;

b) Florin Urzică filed a complaint against the policemen (in fact one policeman, as the two others only “assisted”), who hit him on February 29. The complaint was sent to the chief of the Independent Retention and Preventive Arrest Center of the DGPMB, who had to forward it to the prosecutor’s office. Only when prosecutors take a decision would the police start, if necessary, its own investigation. In other words, during the investigation of the prosecutors, expected to follow, the policemen involved in the case would have no problem continuing to “work” with the public;

c) The criminal investigation of the alleged crimes committed by Florin Urzică (theft/break-in) is conducted by another policeman than the tree involved in his retention on February 29.

d) There are at least two controversial aspects of the way recordings are made in the registry book containing the name, date and time of arrivals for people “led” to the police station. First, the registry book is classified as a work secret, as detailed above. Second, the registry contains, according to the commander of police Station no. 9, only information on persons led to the station as witnesses or plaintiffs/subjects of complaints for minor demeanors, such as brawls among neighbors or loud music. If the persons “led” to the station are suspects of crimes (including flagrant offenders), they are not recorded in the registry. Instead, a report is prepared by the same policemen who detained the person, and added to the file. In the Association’s view, there should be a double recording: both a report with the aforementioned information plus the grounds and circumstances that led to the decision to detain the suspect, and a recording of the arrival, irrespective of the reasons. APADOR-CH reminds that the 2010 CPT report recommended creating a unique registry book for all persons who, for one reason or another, end up at the police station, against their will.

The Constantin Dinu case

Constantin Dinu of room no. 1 – a room mate of Florin Urzică’s – said that he had also been beaten upon his arrest on February 10, 2012, in Răcari, Dâmboviţa county, by policemen of the car theft department. He said he was in a car that was stopped by the police, that he was taken out of the car, pushed to the ground and repeatedly kicked. He was then taken to the DGPMB medical ward for the medical examination prior to being taken into custody. His face was swollen and he told the person who examined him (probably a nurse) that he had been beaten by the police. A surgical consult was recommended but Constantin Dinu refused, because he was very tired (it was already 4 a.m. on February 11) and he thought he would make a swift comeback. Later, feeling worse, he called the agents of the facility, who took him back to the medical ward and to specialist exams (trauma and neurology). His medical file mentions “Physical aggression outside the custody facility”.

Conclusions:

1. APADOR-CH asks the prosecutor’s office to investigate with celerity and impartially the credible ill treatment accusations against the policemen at Police Station no. 9, as well as those from Răcari. APADOR-CH reminds that the right not to be subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment is an absolute right. Police may use force only in limited situations, observing the proportionality of the intervention and aiming at restraining the suspect, rather than submitting it to illegal physical punishment. In the case of theft/break-in suspects who do not resist arrest and do not endanger the policemen’s life and limb (see Law no. 218/2002, updated in 2009, Article 34, letter d) the use of force in completely unjustified. APADOR-CH points out that, when faced with credible accusations of treatments in breach with Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the state authorities are under the obligation to run speedy and detailed investigations, able to find out the perpetrators and hold them responsible;

2. The two cases presented above (as others, for which APADOR-CH conducted extra-judiciary investigations) demonstrate that the time when persons are “led” to the police station – including the first moments of deprivation of freedom – when they are restrained, be it on the street or in a car – is a highly vulnerable time for suspects. APADOR-CH asks for a strict regulation of the way police operate before the retention ordinance is issued, in order to prevent any abuse from law enforcement agents;

3. The Association asks for all the persons led to police stations to be recorded in the special registry books, no matter on what grounds they were brought in, and for the registries to be taken out of the work secret category;

4. APADOR-CH insists that policemen or police agents against whom abuse complaints have been filed and are under investigation by prosecutor’s offices should be removed from public duty until the investigations are finalized;

5. The Association asks the DGPMB to launch an inquiry into the participation of several policemen to a memorial meal inside Police Station no. 9 on February 29, 2012. The Association also requires explanations regarding the excessive time (8 hours and a half) Florin Urzică was kept on the corridor, in handcuffs.

6. APADOR-CH asks explanations about the intervention of the policeman at the Pantelimon Hospital, in the on-call room, while the doctor on duty was examining Florin Urzică.

Manuela Ştefănescu Maria-Nicoleta Andreescu

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