Final verdict at the Court of Appeal. Alexandru Buciuman, the driver who killed a child in Oradea, will serve 6 years in prison

The sentence represents one of the harshest punishments handed down in a manslaughter case, although the parents of the 12-year-old boy killed in the accident demanded that Buciuman be tried for murder.

“Rejects as unfounded the appeals declared by the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Oradea District Court, the injured persons Chiva Maria-Luiza, Chiva Constantin Adrian and the defendant Buciuman Alexandru Călin against criminal sentence no. 1740/2023 of December 12, 2023 pronounced by the Oradea Court, which it maintains”, it is stated in the minutes of the final sentence pronounced by the Court of Appeal in Oradea.

“Criminal Negligence”

The accident in which 12-year-old Horia Chiva lost her life happened on June 22, 2023, around 5:45 p.m., on Calea Aradului, in Oradea. The boy was trying to cross the street on the pedestrian crossing and was hit head-on by the car driven by Alexandru Buciuman, 25 years old.

The driver fled from the scene of the accident, justifying his action by the fact that he was scared and was followed by other drivers. He was quickly caught and arrested, and the police found out that he had a breath alcohol level of 0.78 per thousand, and a blood alcohol level of 2.03 g/l of pure alcohol. Buciuman admitted that on the day of the accident, from 2:00 p.m. to around 4:30 p.m., he drank three glasses of wine and five glasses of whiskey at a party organized at the company where he worked.

He then testified that due to his speed and inattentiveness, he did not notice the 12-year-old boy. The forensic report carried out in Timișoara showed that, at the time of the accident, the car driven by the 25-year-old had an average speed of 74-84 km/h, which led the experts to show that “the impact could not be avoided by braking”.

A month after the accident, Horia Chiva was dying in a hospital bed. Accused of “criminal negligence”, Alexandru Buciuman was sent to court for manslaughter, driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or other substances and leaving the scene of the accident. The investigators showed that in the first half of 2023, the man received six traffic penalties.

A trial for murder was requested

During the investigation, Horia Chiva’s family and relatives protested several times, in recent months, in front of the Oradea Prosecutor’s Office and the Palace of Justice, demanding justice for the murdered boy and that the author of the accident should not be released.

Protests were also organized at the place where the accident took place, demanding the installation of a traffic light at the pedestrian crossing considered one of the most dangerous in the city.

In December 2023, the Oradea Court sentenced Alexandru Buciuman to 4 years and 8 months in prison for manslaughter and two other sentences of 2 years in prison for driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, respectively leaving the scene of the accident. The merger resulted in the final sentence of 6 years in prison.

The family, which was not a civil party and did not seek damages, appealed and demanded that the driver be tried for murder. “Given the specific circumstances of the accident – the killing of a 12-year-old child who was crossing the pedestrian crossing regularly, by a driver almost in an alcoholic coma, driving at an excessive speed in the middle of the city, who fled the scene after the accident, we will ask to change the legal classification in the crime of murder”, said at that time Răzvan Doseanu, the lawyer of the Chiva family.