IntMin Marcel Vela: Gendarmes can be involved in protecting citizens

Gendarmes can also be involved in protecting citizens, said Interior Minister Marcel Vela, on Tuesday evening, in the context of the teenager drugged and raped in an abandoned building in southern city of Giurgiu. 

"The gendarmes, who in the respective counties are in a sufficient number, but who are only prepared for interventions in specific actions, can be involved in protecting the citizens. They have legal duties to ensure public order and the protection of goods," Marcel Vela told private broadcaster Romania TV, when asked about the safety of citizens following the cases from Giurgiu and Caracal (the horrific murder case of at least two teenagers, ed.n.). 

The minister showed that the criminal phenomenon "has reached alarming levels" and a recalibration of the Interior Ministry (MAI) personnel is needed. 

"Starting with the period when there were massive retirement and many professionals were no longer active in MAI, law enforcement has had a weakness in this confrontation with the criminal world. Meanwhile, it has come to a situation where we must be aware that the criminal phenomenon has reached alarming levels and we must firstly solve the security of the citizen. And this can be done by recalibrating the Interior Ministry forces in the sense that now there are rural police positions that do not have police officers at all times in a unit," said Vela. 

A 25-year-old man from Giurgiu has been taken into custody, accused of drugging and raping a 16-year-old girl during a satanic ritual carried out in an abandoned building in the city. Subsequently, the defendant distributed, through social applications, a video recording in which the youth appears in various pornographic sequences. 

On November 3, the police officers arrested the young man at the "Henri Coanda" International Airport of Bucharest and took him to the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) - Giurgiu Territorial Office, who was detained and then arrested preventively.