Soccer patron Gigi Becali committed an act of “private justice”, moots the court
The court that judged the case of Gigi Becali, owner of the Steaua Bucharest soccer team, argued the decision to maintain the arrest by the fact that the patron orchestrated an act of “private justice” with the aim to make the victims recognize having stolen his car.
As the motivation report reads, the interrogation was carried out in a public place and taped, while the victims were injured. Becali supposedly humiliated the thieves and threatened them that unless they confessed to having stolen his car, he would step outside the room and “hand them in to his bodyguards.”
The confessions were signed by Becali and by a person assuming the title of prosecutor.
The court decided to keep the Steaua owner and other four men under preventive arrest, arguing that shooting and restraining a person for several hours “has a major social echo and induces fear and indignation on the public opinion.”
The court also rejected the files handed in by Becali referring to his title of honorific president of the National League for the Human Rights Defense and to his charity works and characterized them as irrelevant.
The defendant's lawyers asked on April 10 that the preventive arrest decision be revoked. The appeal will be judged tomorrow, together with three other pleas belonging to the same case.
Gigi Becali was detained on April 2 together with four other people. The fifth person was held later on, while the seventh has not been found by the policemen, according to the Bucharest Police spokesman, Cristian Ciocan.
The court accused Becali of restraining three people, decided to arrest him on April 3 and rejected all appeals after a 10-hour trial on April 6.