Criminal investigation against the Sky News journalists

A cheap journalist trick has turned into a huge judicial scandal with international echoes.

The prosecutors of Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) started criminal investigation against three crew-members of the Sky News British Channel who made a report on alleged gun running in Romania.

The accusation levelled against them is communication of false information. Judicial sources say the prosecutors will call for the hearing of the British journalists by an international rogatory commission. Unanimously deemed a gross manipulation act, the pseudo-investigation made by the British reporters might affect the Romanian state’s security- this is how the Court of Appeal in Bucharest motivates its ruling on temporary taking into custody the Romanian citizens featured in the staged report and of the person who intermediated the alleged deal.

Sent behind bars for 30 days, the Romanian nationals are accused of setting up an organised criminal group, violating the regime of arms and ammunition and of communicating false information. The inquiry shows however that, in reality, the so-called journalistic investigation was not based on real facts and circumstances, but staged by the journalists, who presented false data and information as true.

The journalists allegedly knew the three Romanians presented in the report were not gun dealers, but simple hunters, who legally owned the arms featured in the report. Furthermore, the fake dealers were specifically requested on July 31, when the report was filmed, to speak the Romanian language, although their mother tongue is Hungarian. They were equally requested to use phrases dictated by the British journalists. According to their testimony, they would have received some 2,000 Euros for the whole acting performance.

The whole story is even more deplorable as Sky News was considered a trustworthy source of information, and the rigour of British journalists is always evoked with respect by the younger free press in Romania. The report has been taken over and re-broadcast by mass media institutions in other countries, and according to prosecutors, the facts presented in the report have generated bad sentiment against Romania, as well as a felling of insecurity among Romanians.

A country can’t be denigrated without proof, warns PM Dacian Ciolos, whereas justice minister Raluca Pruna has said the Romanian state should react. Already with their backs against the wall, and the target of an avalanche of accusations for not observing a set of elementary deontological norms, both the Sky News British Channel and the producer of the report, Stuart Ramsay, further claim the report is real, although concordant accounts from London claim they can’t convince even their loyal public.