6 BILLION IN LOSSES DUE TO ILLEGAL LOGGING Assassination attempt on one of our interviewees

• Two people fighting against the timber mafia - Pal Emeric and former deputy Dezideriu Garda -, revealed for BURSA the pressure that they were subjected to

• The criminals made good on their threats

• Pal Emeric was attacked inside his home by three professional killers

• Pal Emeric narrates

"Friday, April 23rd.

This was going to be a special day...

The day I would become the head of the Composorate of Joseni, the institution that handles the administration of privately managed forests.

In the morning, around 8 o clock, I was preparing breakfast with my mother.

I was slicing the bread and she was doing the dishes.

I looked at the clock as we were getting ready to eat.

It was 8.45.

The meeting in which I was supposed to be elected chairman was scheduled for 11 o"clock. I was already the designated chairman, with the backing of 98% of the members.

Somebody knocked at the door...

I opened the door...

An athletic man forced the door open and knocked me on the head.

I fell to the floor, stumbling over a small fridge that I have in the lobby.

My nose was bleeding and I was dizzy.

After the string of blows, since I am rather strong myself, I succeeded in getting up from the floor and I ran to the kitchen to grab a knife and defend myself.

My mother who is 67 was in the kitchen and she was terribly scared when she saw the state I was in, but nevertheless she came to my aid.

I managed to grab the knife to defend myself.

Then, another man entered the house...

I was surrounded, and the second man attacked me and tried to take the knife away from me, and hit me brutally in the head.

I fell to my knees and I saw I was lying in a puddle of my own blood.

While I was fighting these murderers, my mother managed to call the emergency number.

With the last of my strength, I managed to shove my knife into the floor and twist it. I saw that a third man was standing in the lobby, ready to alert the other two.

The second man, who must have weighed 100 kilos, hit me in the head with a stainless steel glove for cutting meat...

I passed out...

The noise they made attracted our neighbors who came out to the street. causing the three killers to flee.

As they ran away, they pushed my mother down a flight of steps and she is now in the hospital with two broken ribs, and with a perforated lung.

Within seven minutes, the Police, the ambulance and the Forensics arrived on the scene...

I was in the hospital and the people in town were angry and were very close to rioting. They were worried and angry because of what happened to me, and the local police had trouble calming them down...

The area was searched and the three men were caught.

I was surprised to find out that two of them were from the town of Deva and one came from Arad, and he was born in Miercurea Ciuc.

Imagine my surprise when realizing that I had seen two of them in a café in town, the day before.

Two days after my hospitalization, I asked to be released to participate in an extraordinary meeting of the Composorate in Joseni, at the end of which I was elected its chairman.

Meanwhile, the Police informed me that the attackers were professional killers...

Someone wanted to eliminate me for all my struggle against the gangsters that I spoke about in the article that appeared in your newspaper and in other local and county newspapers...

What else is there to say?..."

• THE UNTOLD STORY OF OUR MISSING FORRESTS:

• An unhealed 6 billion dollar wound in the heart of Romania

(excerpt from the article published by BURSA, on March 8th, 2010, which led to the assassination attempt)

Reporter: Mr. Dezideriu Garda, in your years as a deputy, you were one of the politicians that fought the timber mafia and you exposed many times the destruction of Romania"s forests. How much do you think Romania lost due to forests which were given to people who were not their rightful owners and due to illegal clearing?

Dezideriu Garda: The institutions of the state estimate that in the counties of Harghita and Covasna the losses amount to around 6 billion dollars. This occurred due to illegal retrocessions, as well as due to parasite companies set up by some various rangers. Instead of exploiting the trees that were cut down, it was the trees that were left in place that are being exploited. The contractual clauses of the calls for tenders held by Romsilva were also broken by many of the companies that won the auctions. In Harghita alone 1.4 million cubic meters of timber were not officially recorded.

Reporter: Do you think this prejudice at the very heart of our country can ever be recovered?

Dezideriu Garda: Romania will never recover from this. Apart from the physical damage, we are also talking about a human prejudice, in which the forests owned by various people were abusively confiscated and given to others, to say nothing of the environmental damage, which affects everyone"s health. Unfortunately, due to this kind of business and the new "barons" who have arisen, Romania is turning into a medieval country and this is becoming general, going beyond one just one political party. At the same time, the people in the administration have become the new "overlords" that exploit people in the country side worse than the middle age landlords did. Politicians don"t have any interest in punishing the guilty.

Reporter: Mr. Garda, could you give us a brief explanation of how it all came to this, and what are you conclusions...

Dezideriu Garda: Between 1998 and 2000 there was a special commission in place, whose goal was to investigate the issues of the Romanian forestry. The commission uncovered many infractions and abuses, must most of the documents were lost and to this day we still have no idea how. Later, in 2000, the Parliament passed a law by which those who prejudiced the economy were supposed to be punished. But, eventually, all the cases were covered up. In 2001, I became a member of the Commission for the investigation of abuse, corruption and complaints and I participated in numerous investigations of the Environmental Guard and of the Regional Inspectorates for Forestry and Hunting.

The investigations uncovered many irregularities, but the guilty were let off the hook again because they have high level protection. In the 2006-2008 period, together with the Authority for the Retrocession of Properties, we participated in three investigations based on which we made three reports that were ignored. The people involved in illegal retrocessions did everything to remove me from politics, which they eventually succeeded in doing at the end of 2008.

Reporter: Did you receive any threats during your investigations as member of the Parliament?

Dezideriu Garda: They tried to kill me! I received death threats many times. In 2001 I even suffered a weird car accident. I was riding in my car which came from the Chamber of Deputies, as I was on my way to Cluj my steering-gear had problems and the car crashed. The car tumbled eight times, I flew 80 meters and landed on a football field were a game was about to start. Imagine all those people waiting for the game and me landing there out of the blue. After the accident the Police recorded my statements while I was on the operating table, and I was only half aware. The mechanic from the car service told me that the car had major malfunctions in the steering gear. I still don"t know how that accident was possible and why an official car had such issues. I suspect certain businessmen who have high raking politicians are behind it.

Reporter: You say that the people who caused the damage were never punished. Then how can your name appear in a corruption case?

Dezideriu Garda: This is where my Golgotha begins. My opinions and my political statements caused me to be sued for slander and insult. On June 11th, 2008 I was summoned to come to the headquarters of the General Prosecutors" Office. I was threatened that if I didn"t settle with the plaintiff by taking back my statements (which matched the findings of the Commission for investigating the abuses), I would go to prison for three years. I talked to the Commission for Investigating abuse of the Chamber of Deputies and the Permanent Office. I was a deputy and so I had immunity. After my mandate expired, the investigation began, and then I was prosecuted for libel and insult.

• The case in Joseni

Pal Emeric, of Joseni, county of Harghita, tried to fight the irregularities of the forests in the region, going as far as to lead a peaceful protest, for which he got a criminal prosecution file. He briefly recounted his efforts to stop the destruction of the forest.

Reporter: Mr. Emeric, what does the forest represent for people in the area?

Pal Emeric: The forest is everything for me and for the locals. Apart from the fact that it represents a source of making a fair income which provides security, it has a symbolic value as well, since we are talking about the lands which belonged to our ancestors.

Reporter: How are things in the area?

Pal Emeric: People are very unhappy that the lands which belonged to their ancestors, were abusively given to other very influential people. I myself own a plot of forest land that was taken away from me abusively.

Reporter: Were there any protests?

Pal Emeric: Yes, in the commune of Joseni, on March 15th, 2009, there was a peaceful protest which was organized by me, which had received approval, against the illegal retrocessions and the numerous irregularities. The UDMR ( the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania) had organized the national day at the time. After the commemoration of the revolutionaries of 1848, 350-400 people participated in the protest, which was a surprise for the authorities. After this, I notified the National Integrity Agency about the fortunes of several public servants, but it"s been more than one year and I have yet to receive an answer.

Reporter: What happened after that?

Pal Emeric: Following all these actions, several civil servants filed a criminal complaint against me at the Prosecutor"s Office of the Court of Gheorgheni, accusing me of insult and slander. But since the prosecutors decided not to pursue the case, they filed a new complaint with the first instance court of Gheorghieni which was rejected as groundless. The case is currently on trial with the court of Harghita, in the supervisory appeal stage. So, as a conclusion, I don"t know how some public servants are unhappy with me when it seems some of them even have ongoing criminal cases?