Presidential candidate of the ‘Romania Forward’ Alliance Crin Antonescu declared on Tuesday that he had no relationship whatsoever with the former political police Securitate other than being shadowed by the secret police, and requested that the statement he gave the communist investigators in 1988 be made public.

Antonescu explained at a press conference that he came in the crosshairs of the Securitate because a friend of his fled the country in the 1980s. He said that in 1987, while he was working in Tulcea as a teacher, a close friend of his went on a trip to Bulgaria and had a botched attempt to flee to Austria, but was captured by the Bulgarian security forces and then handed over to Romania. „I gave a statement in which I provided no special information other than that I was a friend of the person in question, that I knew he was going on a trip to Bulgaria and that I was unaware of his other intentions, which was in effect true, and that was all and nothing more,” Antonescu said. „Interestingly enough, the following year, in 1988, the person in question had a new attempt, luckily successful this time, to leave the country. I was the only person who knew about his intention. He trusted me so much that he instructed me what to do after he left, namely to announce to his parents, which I did. The man crossed Yugoslavia, stayed in the camp for a while and then headed for Canada, where he still lives today,” Antonescu reported.

The presidential hopeful requests that the statement he gave to the Securitate back then be made public to prove that he has absolutely nothing to hide. „I was a victim of the Securitate, not in the least a collaborator, much less a collaborator of the Securitate as a political police. I understand that a lot can happen in an electoral campaign, but this seems to me a dirty maneuver and once again I ask the CNSAS to publish the statement,” Antonescu said.

The National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) has determined that Antonescu gave a statement to the Securitate in 1988, but cannot be considered an agent or collaborator of the communist secret police.

The certificate published on the CNSAS website shows that Antonescu appears in an intelligence file and gave in 1988 an informative note about a friend, at the time when he was a teacher at the Niculitel School (Tulcea County). The CNSAS holds that Crin Antonescu doesn’t fall under the definition of Securitate worker, in the meaning of the law.

AGERPRES