After publishing an investigative report accusing Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă of plagiarism in his PhD thesis, journalist Emilia Șercan filed a police complaint for threats against her. Now she claims the Romanian Police has leaked information from her criminal complaint and alleges suppression of evidence.

Journalist Emilia Șercan accuses the Romanian police of having leaked to a website a piece of evidence she submitted in her criminal case of threats received after she published the investigation in which she accused Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă of plagiarism in his PhD.

In a text published on PressOne, Emilia Șercan claims to have received several threats from unknown persons, including a message on Facebook messenger from a person who sent her several private photos, taken 20 years ago and which the journalist says were stolen from an electronic device.

Șercan says she sent the police a screenshot of the Facebook messenger text she received, which included the personal photos, and a day later the message sent to the police via Whatsapp appeared on a website in Moldova.

The journalist says she has called for an internal police investigation into the leak to the website in Moldova and accuses the police of covering up the investigation. „All these facts, which I can prove, point to a cover-up of the leak of that screenshot to the press. Evidence pointing to the subsequent fabrication of evidence to cover up the leak of the screenshot was presented to me by Superintendent Benone Matei, head of the Romanian police. Given that the Romanian state institutions have resorted to a whole range of tactics to delay the investigation and try to mislead me about the leak, I have already alerted local and international media organisations, European officials and foreign diplomatic missions in Romania about my situation”, wrote Emilia Șercan.

The journalist claims to have received three threats after she published an investigation on 18 February accusing Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă of plagiarising his PhD thesis.

Translated from Romanian