The Bucharest Court of Appeal gave a helping hand to the two fugitives

While the police are still searching for former militia colonels Tudor Stanica and Mihai Creanga, who have recently been sentenced to 11 years in prison over killing anticommunist dissident Gheorghe Ursu in custody in 1985, the prosecutor's office under the Bucharest Court of Appeal gave a helping hand to the two fugitives as the Supreme Court of Justice tried both the appeal filed by the defendants and that filed by the prosecutor's office. Unlike most of the cases in which the prosecutor's office requested the punishments passed by courts be stiffened, the appeal promoted in this case is motivated by the fact that the sentences of 11 years in prison are too strict as to the deeds committed by the two former militia colonels. During yesterday's session of the trial, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled to postpone the appeal as the Ursu family did not have enough time available to hire a lawyer. The trial is to be resumed on August 25.