Police chief fired after officers took 19 hours to respond to kidnapped girl’s telephone calls

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA >> Romania’s national police chief and two county officials have been fired after the authorities took 19 hours to respond to the emergency calls of a kidnapped 15-year-old girl who has disappeared and is feared dead.

The case set off national outrage, with hundreds of people gathering outside the suspect’s house to protest on Friday. Romania’s president and prime minister have called for an analysis of the response and punishment of those responsible.

The teenager called the European emergency services three times Thursday morning, telling operators she had been kidnapped by a man who picked her up as she was hitchhiking back from a nearby town.

“He’s coming, he’s coming,” were the girl’s last words before the call ended abruptly, Police Chief Ioan Buda told reporters.

It wasn’t until 19 hours later that the police entered the property in the southwestern town of Caracal where she was believed to have been held. Police found what appeared to be fragments of human bones in a barrel at the property, as well as pieces of clothing and jewelry, but no body.

Authorities arrested a 66-year-old mechanic, Gheorghe Dinca, early Saturday on suspicion of juvenile trafficking and rape. A court was expected to place him under preliminary confinement for up to 30 days.

Interior Minister Nicolae Moga said Friday that he had fired Buda; the Olt County prefect, Petre Neacsu; and the Olt County police chief, Cristian Voiculescuc, over the case.

A Romanian police spokesman did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Authorities have said police initially struggled to locate the source of the emergency calls, but once they arrived at the property, they said, officers waited for a search warrant, letting several more hours pass before they entered the building.

Police maintained that they weren’t allowed to enter until after 6 a.m., under instruction from prosecutors. Buda, however, later acknowledged that the officers could have taken other measures to enter.

In a Facebook post, a man identified as the victim’s uncle, Alexandru Cumpanasu, wrote that his niece “may have been killed while police and prosecutors ‘guarded’ the criminal” and that, if so, she had been effectively “killed by the state she trusted.”