Death in the forest | The culprit, discovered after almost eight months

In August last year, a 36-year-old resident of Covas lost his life in a forest in the Gura Teghii area, felled by a falling tree. The death was caused by the poor coordination of the works, and the investigators would discover numerous irregularities that ultimately led to the death of a man.

According to a press release of the IPJ Buzău, yesterday, the policemen of the Bureau for the Protection of the Forestry and Fisheries Fund within the Buzău County Police Inspectorate detained for 24 hours, on the basis of an ordinance, a 55-year-old man from Covasna for killing fault, failure to take legal health and safety measures at work, forgery in documents under private signature and incitement to forgery in documents under private signature.

From the investigations, it emerged that, on August 8, 2023, as an administrator of a logging company, he would have improperly coordinated the authorized works, in a prosecutor’s office in the outskirts of the Gura Teghii commune, in the sense that he did not would have taken measures to demarcate and signal the place where logging was carried out.

In this context, through the improper handling of an excavator by another employee, on the instructions of the 55-year-old man, a tree was allegedly felled. In falling, the tree allegedly surprised and fatally injured a 36-year-old man from Covasna.

In the continuation of the investigations, the police determined that, on the date of the event, the man who would have handled the excavator would not have been employed with the fulfillment of the legal conditions, he would not have had the qualification nor the mandatory specific training in the field of occupational health and safety.

• He hired him after the man died.

Later, the investigated man would have induced a 25-year-old man, from Covasna, to retroactively draw up the individual employment contract and a health and safety training sheet in the name of the person who would have handled the exploitation equipment. The documents would have been backdated, in order to create the appearance that the man was employed on the date of the incident.

The 55-year-old man is to be presented to the prosecutor’s office today with a proposal to refer the case to the court for preventive arrest and, in relation to the 25-year-old, the case prosecutor ordered the continuation of the investigations under the measure of judicial control.