Former President Traian Băsescu believes that the “handcuff spectacle” from the time of former DNA chief Codruța Kovesi is still evident in the way justice operates today, and cited the case of Călin Georgescu as an example. Băsescu believes that DIICOT (the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism) excessively exposed the former presidential candidate, who is being investigated in a new case, thereby undermining the credibility of justice itself, gandul.ro reports.

“As during Kovesi’s time, and in this case too, in Georgescu’s case, there are facts. In other words, it is a spectacle based on something. The question is: why is justice conducted as a spectacle rather than with decency? That is the question we have been asking ourselves for years,” Băsescu said.

Asked whether, in the context of the new accusations against Georgescu, which led to his being detained for the first time, there was a possibility that his electorate might shift to AUR, Băsescu said that the former presidential candidate remained a unique phenomenon.

“As far as Georgescu is concerned, I labelled him a charlatan from the outset. He was a charlatan and will remain a charlatan. So it will be difficult for him to pass his charlatanry on as an inheritance to someone else in the party, in AUR. Of course, perhaps someone of Peiu’s ilk hopes they can inherit something from Georgescu.

That will not happen. Georgescu has his own electorate; he won an electorate that neither Simion nor Peiu nor Dungaciu nor these tin cans who have latched onto Simion will take away. So I believe that whatever Georgescu loses will be lost for good and nobody else will recover it,” Traian Băsescu said.

Băsescu also criticised, on DIGI 24, the public “spectacle” during the period when Laura Codruța Kovesi headed DNA, stressing that the public exposure of people under investigation before they were tried had contributed to discrediting the fight against corruption.