Amnesty International: Romania Failed To Adequately Prohibit Torture, Ill-Treatment

05.13.2011 By Bostan Radu

Romania has failed to adequately implement rules against torture and ill-treatment, and to prohibit the use of evidence obtained through torture in the criminal code, according to Amnesty International's annual report.

The report states these problems persisted in Romania, despite amendments to the criminal code in May 2010.

"In August, the [UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - CERD] noted excessive use of force and ill-treatment by law enforcement officials against minorities, and Roma in particular. Local NGOs also expressed concerns about continuing reports of torture and other ill-treatment in detention, and an ongoing climate of impunity in some cases," says the Amnesty International (AI) report on human rights in 2010, published Friday.

AI takes note of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgment of June 2010 in the case of Dragos Ciupercescu v. Romania. The Court ruled that Ciupercescu had been subjected to torture during his preventive detention, in 2003, having undergone strip-searches and held in a nine-bed cell together with 19 other prisoners.

The report also mentions the ECHR judgment of July 2010, which said Romania "had violated the prohibition of torture and failed to carry out an effective investigation into a death," also violating the right to a remedy. "The case involved Gabriel Carabulea, a Romani man who died in police custody, in May 1996. In an investigation into the case, the military prosecutor had determined in 1998 that the man had died of heart disease. The European Court concluded that his death resulted from a blunt force trauma which he suffered after the arrest and that the injuries appeared to have been inflicted upon him intentionally."

The ECHR ordered Romania to pay EUR60,000 in the case of Gabriel Carabulea, a larceny suspect - EUR10,000 in moral damages to his brother, Viorel Carabulea, the plaintiff, EUR35,000 to the victim's daughter, and EUR15,000 in court expenses.

In the case of Dragos Ciupercescu, who set off a grenade outside a Bucharest high school in 2002, the Court ordered Romania to pay him more than EUR18,000 in moral and material damages, as well as court expenses, over his harsh prison conditions.