I already questioned in a previous article the timing for the Supreme Council for Defense decision on July 24 to open the Securitate files to the public.
That was a meeting dedicated to assessing the disappearance from Romania of the suspected terrorist Omar Hayssam and resulted in three directors of the intelligence services stepping down.
That latter resulted in the deputy directors of these services taking over the day-to-day operations.
For the case of the counter intelligence service, or SRI, that deputy is Florian Coldea, 35, recruited by Virgil Magureanu, former SRI head. Coldea graduated the National Academy for Intelligence in 1996, specializing in antiterrorism. His wife is also a SRI officer.
I understood since writing my previous article that I should rephrase my initial question: the real issue was what was the link between the resignation of the three directors and the massive operation underway to open the Securitate files to the public?
The answer might be that Radu Timofte, the SRI director appointed to the office by the previous social-democrat government, could have complied less enthusiastically with president Traian Basescuâs orders, particularly with regard to making public the files of the latterâs political opponents.
Coldea was Basescuâs choice for Timofteâs replacement for a long while.
He was groomed to the position starting July 27, 2005, when he became deputy director of the SRI; on March 24, 2006, Basescu made him a colonel. On April 3, 2006, Basescu made public that Coldea would come at the SRI helm in a matter of months.
Ovidiu Ohanesian, one of the three Romanian journalists kidnapped last year in Iraq, said Coldea was the one accompanying them in the plane flying them back to Romania, and the one acting as master of ceremonies during the three days of debriefing they have been s
