SOURCES A new purging method: the withdrawal of the ORNSSI certificate/ Dozens of senior police officers were left without the certificate authorizing them to access classified information

Dozens of policemen were stripped of the certificate that allowed them access to classified information, and after the withdrawal of the ONRSSI (Office of the National Registry of State Secret Information) authorization, policemen in leadership positions were demoted and removed from their positions, sources from the Interior Ministry told G4Media.ro. According to these sources, the withdrawal of this type of certification has started to be widely used as a marginalization method ever since the beginning of 2018. It is much more effective than other disciplinary procedures, which can be challenged, applied gradually and last longer in taking effect.

Instead, the withdrawal of the certificate operates much as as a guillotine, without the police officer in question being able to defend him/herself. The withdrawal is made upon proposal from the Directorate General for Information and Internal Protection (DGIIP), also known as „Two-and-a-quarter” (after the former Information Unit of the Ministry of the Interior, U.M. 0215). DGIIP is not required to motivate the withdrawal decision in the case of a policeman/woman, and ORNISS does not verify the request on the merits, but rather executes a simple formality.

„Reasons are not given, nor are the legal articles grounding the withdrawal of the certificate provided. This information arrives at the service in a classified form. The concerned person is not aware of this. There is no way of defending oneself, „one of the police officers targeted by this action told G4Media.ro.

Among the personnel members demoted or removed from office through this method one counts the former First Deputy of the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, Daniel Marian Dragne, the head of the Medical Directorate, Mr. Iosif Marius Medruţ and the head of the medical expertise commission at the Ministry of Interior. The Head of Sector 1 was said to have begun the re-certification procedures. In August, Cătălin Marius Moşneagu the head of the Internal Control Department was also replaced after his certificate was withdrawn.

Moşneagu appealed the decision in the Court of Appeal and filed a criminal complaint against the head of DGIIP, Mihai Cristian Mărculescu, accusing him of abuse of office, forgery and use of forgery. Police sources said Moşneagu participated in February 2018 in the contest for the leadership position of the Internal Control Department, despite advice to the contrary. The day before the contest, the DIPI sent a revalidation address for the certificate. Moşneagu is thought to have won the contest, but soon thereafter his ONRSSI certificate was withdrawn, which led to his change from office and demotion.

The Internal Control Department was checking, among other things, the way in which the police acted in relation to the anti-SDP car plates* and examined possible disciplinary offenses committed by police officers during the August 10 violence. „The stake is to place their people in full control of the Ministry of the Interior, and of the high-profile criminal files, as many of those stripped of the certification were judicial police officers,” G4Media.ro was told. According to sources, „Currently, no one now has the courage to manifest opposition within the system.”

G4Media.ro has requested from the Ministry of the Interior the number of ORNSSI certifications withdrawn since the beginning of the year to date, as well as the number of certificates withdrawn in 2017 and 2016, but up until the publication of this article it did not receive an answer.

* In the summer of 2018 a Romanian citizen residing in Sweden brought and circulated throughout the country with a car whose plates said „F..k SDP”. This created a whole legal and police-related polemic, as it was ultimately found the citizen was within his rights to do so, despite being sanctioned by the police.

Traducerea: Ruxandra Stoicescu