Cazul Caracal: Contradictions and twists continue to surround the case, from the suspicious deaths of some judges involved in the investigation to the latest episode involving Gheorghe Dincă, the man convicted of murder and human trafficking and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Gheorghe Dincă: A new letter claims illness
In mid-August, Sector 5 Court received a handwritten request by mail from Gheorghe Dincă, who is currently serving his sentence at Giurgiu Penitentiary, requesting a suspension of his punishment on medical grounds.
According to the case documents consulted by FANATIK, Dincă requested the suspension of his sentence for medical reasons in order to undergo medical tests and evaluations by the National Institute of Legal Medicine (INML) and seek treatment at civilian hospitals, as his health problems require surgical intervention that cannot be provided by the prison medical system. However, Dincă’s request was not legally justified and did not include any legal arguments.
Judges requested information from the penitentiary but were unable to find anyone by that name. Eventually, they identified the real Gheorghe Dincă, the Caracal convict who was serving his sentence at Craiova Penitentiary. Consequently, the Bucharest judges declined jurisdiction and transferred the case to Olt Tribunal, which had the authority to examine the applicant’s appeal.
Dincă denies submitting the release request
Olt Tribunal took over the case and summoned Gheorghe Dincă to support his request. However, his appearance before the judges came as a big surprise. He stated that he did not know why he had been summoned to court because he did not submit a request to suspend his sentence. Moreover, he claimed that the personal information, including his civil status, mother’s name, and identification number, did not belong to him.
“Gheorghe Dincă was summoned in prison and came to court to say that he did not submit the request, that the handwriting did not belong to him. He said it was a case of mistaken identity, that there is another Gheorghe Dincă from Caracal. Eventually, Olt Tribunal rejected the request,” explained Carmen Obârșanu, the lawyer representing the Melencu family, to FANATIK.
“The Monster” from Caracal files another appeal
However, the story doesn’t end there. “The real” Gheorghe Dincă filed an appeal against the tribunal’s decision, which was subsequently transferred to Craiova Court of Appeal.
On September 25, 2023, Dincă appeared before the court once again, accompanied by a court-appointed lawyer, and declared that he no longer supported his appeal and wished to remain in prison. As a result, the judges acknowledged the withdrawal of the appeal and definitively settled Dincă’s request.
The legal process involving the Caracal convict cost the Romanian state 680 lei, an amount that will be reimbursed for the court-appointed lawyer’s fees. Dincă himself will have to pay 200 lei in court expenses.
Mystery lawyer visits Dincă in prison, says Melencu family’s lawyer
Carmen Obârșanu, the lawyer representing the Melencu family in the Caracal case, revealed that she visited Gheorghe Dincă in prison in an attempt to uncover the truth about the fate of the missing girls, even in the eleventh hour.
“I went to see him in September and asked him why he didn’t file a cassation appeal. I told him to go to the Supreme Court and tell them everything he knows about the girls’ fate. He replied that a mysterious lawyer came to him and that he handed over all the documents to her for filing the cassation appeal. However, when I checked, no request had been submitted to the Supreme Court on Dincă’s behalf. I don’t know who this mysterious lawyer is. Then he told me that he needs to team up with Moldovan (the lawyer representing the Măceșanu family) and get himself out of prison. I told him that first, he must reveal what he discussed with that police officer from Bucharest (profiler Dorin Dumitran, who made Dincă confess to the murder within a few hours of the interrogation),” stated Carmen Obârșanu to FANATIK.
The Caracal case shocked the Romanian Police
The Caracal case began in the summer of 2019 with the arrest of Gheorghe Dincă, who was accused of kidnapping, rape, and murder of two young women, whose bodies were allegedly burned in an improvised oven in the backyard of his house.
Dincă’s conviction was based on biological evidence collected at the crime scene and a statement he subsequently retracted. The human remains were never found, and the main suspect constantly played mind games with the investigators.
The Caracal case also led to the dismissal of the chief of the Olt County Police, the chief of Caracal Police, and his wife, who was the head of the Osica de Sus Police Station, where the first report of Alexandra’s disappearance was made.
Furthermore, the prefect and deputy prefect of Olt were also dismissed, and the Minister of the Interior, Nicolae Moga, resigned after the disastrous handling of the case by the authorities.
The authorities put a lid on it
The lawyer representing the Măceșanu family claims that the case was rushed and aimed solely at convicting Gheorghe Dincă, with little concern for the fate of the missing girls.
She filed several criminal complaints with the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) against Caracal police officers and also regarding an alleged robbery involving Luiza Melencu, whose phone was reactivated many months after her disappearance.
