Romania’s president asks anti-organized crime head to step down over notorious murder case investigation

Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis asked for the resignation of anti-organized crime chief prosecutor Felix Banila, in a press statement on Monday evening, September 30. Iohannis said that Banila has to step down for the way his department (DIICOT) has managed the investigation of the notorious Caracal murder case.

“DIICOT’s involvement in the Caracal case investigation should have brought more professionalism and credibility. However, under Mr. Banila’s lead, this hasn’t happened, and the investigation continues to generate major question marks. The way in which things have unfolded so far has only raised more suspicions and accentuated the people’s lack of trust in the authorities, and such an approach can only lead to bad results,” Iohannis said. “I thus ask Mr. Felix Banila, chief-prosecutor of DIICOT, to immediately resign. It’s of utmost importance that the mistakes in the last weeks be assumed responsibly and a change is needed at top level so that the institution regains credibility,” the president added.

The Caracal case is the most notorious murder case in Romania in recent years. On July 24, 15-year old Alexandra Macesanu, who lived in a village near Caracal, went missing. She managed to call the emergency number 112 and announce that she had been kidnapped and raped by a man, but it took hours for the police to locate her. The police went into the suspect’s home only the next day but didn’t find her. Gheorghe Dinca, a 66-year-old mechanic from Caracal, confessed to murdering Alexandra Macesanu and Luiza Melencu, an 18-year old girl that had gone missing in April, and burning their bodies. However, the public opinion was split and many believed that Dinca was part of a human trafficking network and that the two girls had, in fact, been taken out of the country. Some of those who favored this theory, including Alexandra Macesanu’s uncle Alexandru Cumpanasu, now a presidential candidate, also believed that the local authorities were involved in a coverup operation.

This is why the Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), which doesn’t normally investigate murder cases, took over the investigation of the Caracal case.

Forensic tests showed that the human remains found in a barrel at Gheorghe Dinca’s house indeed belonged to Alexandra Macesanu. Dinca also led the investigators to a forest where they found other human remains, which he said belonged to Luiza Melencu. The tests confirmed that the remains belonged to a young girl, but the investigators needed to run DNA tests to confirm Luiza’s death.

This is where things got messy, as Luiza’s mother refused to allow the authorities take DNA samples from her to check if they matched the DNA of the remains found in the woods. The DIICOT subpoenaed her to get the samples and, as the woman continued to refuse, the prosecutors went with police officers and gendarmes to her house to bring her in for collecting the samples, on Friday, September 27. They talked to the woman for four hours trying to convince her to give the DNA samples, but with no result. The woman and her father were taken to the hospital with chest pain. DIICOT chief Felix Banila explained that the team sent after Luiza’s mother tried to reason with her although they could have taken her in by force.