BUCHAREST, July 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Romania’s Interior Minister Nicolae Moga resigned on Tuesday amid a wave of public revulsion over a murder case in which police failed to react in time to save a teenage girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case has sparked an outcry against the authorities, with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets of Bucharest on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I took this decision to safeguard a part of the prestige of the ministry, which has been severely damaged by the faulty actions of some of its employees,” said Moga of his resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moga is the third high-ranking official to quit over the case in the space of a week, following the departure of the chief of police, Ioan Buda, and the head of the Special Telecommunications Service (STS), Ionel Vasilca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A suspect, 65-year-old Gheorghe Dinca, was arrested on Sunday in the southern town of Caracal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has admitted to kidnapping and killing the 15-year-old girl, Alexandra, but also another girl who disappeared in April called Luiza, according to his lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dinca’s lawyer also says prosecutors have suspicions that he might be responsible for more than the two crimes he has already confessed to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three other police chiefs in the region where Caracal is located have also been fired and eight officers are under investigation for alleged negligence in their handling of the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, Alexandra, who was abducted while hitch-hiking home, managed to ring the emergency 112 number three times and give police clues about the location where she was being held by her captor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She yelled “he’s coming, he’s coming” before the line was cut, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Critics allege that officials failed to take the alert seriously and reacted too late to locate and help save the teen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis denounced on Tuesday “a long chain of errors” in the case and demanded measures to ensure “such tragedies can be avoided”. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BUCHAREST, July 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Romania’s Interior Minister Nicolae Moga resigned on Tuesday amid a wave of public revulsion over a murder case in which police failed to react in time to save a teenage girl. The case has sparked an outcry against the authorities, with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets of Bucharest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35558"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}