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The parents of three of the young people killed in an 30 October 2015 Colectiv fire tragedy voiced dissatisfaction on Wednesday with the developments in the court files related to the fire, claiming that not all aspects and persons responsible for the death of the 64 young people are investigated.
"The main dissatisfaction is that none of the three files has reached the court of law, with the most advanced stage being the preliminary chamber. Secondly, after so many investigations and after a year, we find it that all of the persons responsible for what happened there were not charged," Laurentiu Istrate, father of a young man who passed away after the terrible fire, told a news conference at a lawyer's office.
He said that there are still persons to be investigated, including as regards the fire. He said that from his point of view, two things are to be clearly investigated: firstly, why and how it happened, and secondly, the intervention for rescuing the youth and the treatment they received in hospitals.
Istrate added that the way the fire occurred is being investigated in three files, but no file has been open on the way the authorities intervened to rescue the young people and the treatment the victims have received in the hospitals.
"Our goal is to make sure that in Romania such things never happen again, and when we say this, we understand that in the hospitals of Romania patients must be treated properly, authorities must be held accountable and also have the power to say, if conditions are scarce, 'yes, we cannot treat them, we send them to places where, even if abroad and costly, they could stand a chance to survive,' but of course, at the same time, we wish that such conditions exist here, in Romania, as well," said Istrate.
In his opinion, the causes of the fire were first of all administrative causes, because those who decided to let such an 'improper' space be used - the owners of the property, of the club, the authorities - should have observed the law.
"As for what happened afterwards, I believe the intervention was left to those who made it there, I mean uncoordinatedly. We want this aspect to be investigated; it is not me to say that the action should have been coordinated by X or Y, but I've heard that there are procedures, laws, that there is an action procedure for such cases, butwe saw nothing of the kind over there," added Istrate.
Another parent, Narcis Hogea, stressed that an investigation is needed to find out what happened after the fire, too.
Lawyer Antoniu Obancea, a pro bono lawyer to the parents of the young people killed at Colectiv, explained the legal developments in the files opened after the tragedy.
"It's about three files, divided along jurisdiction criteria: the file on the fire's technical causes was built by the Forensic Department of the Supreme Court's Prosecution Service, the file is sent to court in a preliminary chamber somehow, so we are at half-distance from the beginning of the trial; the other two files are being investigated by the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA), because corruption and corruption-related offences have been revealed, which is why they have split the case into several files," said Antoniu Obancea.
