Romania’s Ministry of National Defense (MApN) has decided to check how former interior minister Gabriel Oprea was promoted to general. The investigation is to be carried out by a commission within MApN.

“Following notifications and information requests from journalists on how the legal requirements were met when promoting general (r.) Gabriel Oprea from the rank of colonel to that of brigadier general, the minister of national defense ordered the establishment of a committee within MApN that will examine these aspects,” reads a statement from the Ministry.

The results of this investigation will be made public.

Gabriel Oprea was promoted to general in 2001, during Ion Iliescu's regime, one year after he resume active military service as colonel. The law states that in times of peace, a colonel can be promoted to general after at least five years of service and after passing an exam. There is no indication that the law was respected in Oprea's case, according to local newspaper Romania Libera, which recently published an investigation on this matter.

Oprea's promotion to general came shortly after he got his doctorate degree, which he recently lost after his doctorate thesis was proved to be plagiarized.

Since becoming general in 2001, Gabriel Oprea has been promoted three more times, reaching the degree of four-star general in reserve in 2009 when he was promoted via a decree signed by former President Traian Basescu. On December 1, 2008, Oprea had been promoted to lieutenant general in reserve.

Gabriel Oprea's rise in military rank came together with his political ascension. He started as a deputy director at the National Defense College, a school where a lot of politicians got their doctorate degrees. He was then named state secretary and president of the State's Reserves National Administration, and then he was minister delegate for public administration in Adrian Nastase's cabinet.

In 2004, he was elected in the Chamber of Deputies and in 2008, after he switched sides and joined President Traian Basescu's camp, he was named minister of administration and interior and the minister of defense. He was minister of defense until May 2012, when the Parliament dismissed the Government.

Meanwhile, he created his own political party, the National Union for Romania's Progress (UNPR). In November 2012, he was elected senator and his party entered the Parliament. He helped the Social Democratic Party (PSD) form the Government and was named deputy prime minister in return. In March 2014, he was also give the portfolio of internal affairs. In June 2015, when Prime Minister Victor Ponta went to have surgery on his knee, Oprea held his place as acting Prime Minister for a few weeks.

Oprea's fall came just as abrupt. In November 2015 he resigned together with the Ponta cabinet. The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) then charged him with abuse of power and then manslaughter, after a policeman in his motorcade lost his life in a rainy night in October 2015.

Gabriel Oprea announced he would resign from the Senate at the end of September, after being criticized for hiding behind his immunity as an MP to dodge prosecution for manslaughter in a case related to young policeman Bogdan Gigina’s death in October 2015.

He took this decision after large protests were organized in Bucharest and other large cities against the Senate’s decision to shield Gabriel Oprea from prosecution. However, he hasn't filed his resignation yet.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com