Three people indicted in Romania after Sky News scandal; Prosecutors may go against British journalists

Three of the five Romanians involved in making the Sky News feature about alleged arms dealers in Romania have been indicted by the anti-organized crime prosecutors. The prosecutors held one of the men, after hearings on Thursday, August 11, and the other two were likely to share the same treatment from the investigators. The three men, Aurelian Szanto, Levente Pantics, and Szaba Attila Pantics, have been charged with complicity to communicating and spreading false information that puts national security at risk, according to Mediafax. They risk jail sentences of up to five years. The prosecutors also charged them with not respecting the rules for using firearms and for setting up an organized crime group. Romania’s Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), which is in charge with this investigation, also considers going after the British journalists who made the video about alleged illegal arms dealers in Romania. The journalists may be investigated for spreading false information about Romania and putting the country’s security at risk. Sky News aired on Sunday, August 7, a news feature about alleged arms traffickers in Romania who sold illegal military weapons to anyone interested, including terrorists. The Sky News journalists claimed they met with the Romanians gun dealers and talked to them and even filmed a video in which the traffickers talk about their business. The Romanian prosecutors started an investigation based on this news and found evidence that this may be a scam. The Romanian investigators have found the guns presented in the Sky News feature, which are not military weapons but hunting rifles, according to the police. They have also found the car that appears in the video and five Romanians who apparently contributed to making the video. They are not gun dealers but some of them own hunting rifles. One of them, Aurelian Szanto, who claims he was the intermediary between the Sky News team and the alleged Romanian gun dealers, told the prosecutors that he had been tricked by the British journalists who told him they were shooting a fictional documentary about arms trafficking in Eastern Europe. He also claims that he and the other Romanians were paid and instructed what to say in the video. Based on this evidence, the DIICOT chief prosecutor Daniel Horodniceanu declared on Wednesday that the Sky News video was a likely fictitious script. However, British journalist Stuart Ramsay, who made the video, continues to claim that the news is real and that the Romanian authorities are trying to cover it up. Sky News continues to back his story as well. “Ok I'm genuinely laughing. Why would anyone face charges for exposing a fact? It's real. Wake up,” Ramsay wrote on Twitter after he found that the Romanian prosecutors may go after him. Meanwhile, the scandal has also triggered the first top level political reaction in Romania. Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said on Thursday that he had asked the Romanian ambassador in London to take a public stand related to this case. “It is inadmissible. You can’t denigrate a country without having any proof when you come up with certain statements,” Ciolos said, according to local News.ro. Romania’s ambassador to the UK said he notified the audiovisual watchdog in Britain - OFCOM. OFCOM has received some 12 complaints about the Sky News feature.