Romanian Marin Cioroianu – former member of the Foreign Legion accused of being involved in the murder of the Chad President’s eldest son – said he was not at the scene of the crime, as he had been drinking with his employer throughout the entire night before the murder, according to his lawyer.
Cioroianu’s lawyer said Tuesday, upon leaving the courtroom of the Romanian High Court of Justice, that his client said he “had been drinking throughout the entire night before the murder, with his employer, Dan Batois” and that he was not near the scene when the murder took place.
On the Tuesday hearing, before the debate on the appeal against the arrest, Adrian Georgescu raised an exception of unconstitutionality against several articles of Law 302/2004 on international judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Tuesday, the High Court of Justice denied the lawyer’s request to send the case to constitutional judges, and Georgescu appealed to the nine-judge panel of the Supreme Court. The panel will discuss the challenge until the end of the week.
Tuesday, the High Court of Justice discussed Cioroianu’s challenge of his preventive arrest, in view of extradition to French custody. The French are trying to establish how the sun of the Chad President was murdered in July 2007, in Paris, where investigators found a watch and a fingerprint belonging to Cioroianu.
The victim was attacked, by four men wearing sky masks, in the underground parking lot of his residence. The attackers fired an arrow in the victim’s thigh. One of the aggressors tackled the victim to prevent it from running, as shown in the surveillance footage captured by the parking lot cameras. At this point, the attacker lost his white metal Tissot watch.
After being knocked down, the victim - Brahim Deby – was covered in fire extinguisher foam, and was found in agony on the staircase.
French investigators found that the aggressors each came with a car in the parking lot where the attack took place. Cioroianu’s car was searched and a glove was found. After a DNA analysis on the glove and on the watch, investigators concluded these items belonged to the same person, namely Cioroianu.
After the attack, Marius Cioroianu left France and returned to Romania driving a Porsche he had stolen from his employer.
On November 29 Marin Cioroianu was caught in Romanian county Harghita, according to the Romanian Ministry of Interior.
In Cioroianu’s home police found a gun, walkie-talkies and a bow and arrows.
Harghita police spokesperson Gheorghe Filip said Cioroianu, aged 40, was a soldier in the French Foreign Legion for nine years.
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