Son of Tudorel Toader contests preventive arrest at Supreme Court for rape and sexual assault
Alexandru Toader, former lecturer at "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iași, is seeking the Supreme Court to annul the preventive arrest. He is accused of rape and sexual assault against multiple students.
Supreme Court decides on arrest of Alexandru Toader, accused of rape against students
The Supreme Court of Cassation and Justice is examining today Alexandru Toader's challenge against the preventive arrest measure, according to Cotidianul.ro. The former lecturer at the Law Faculty of "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iași has been in detention since 24 October, after the Iași Court of Appeal initially approved the retention proposal.
The defendant has requested the supreme court either to conduct his investigation whilst free, or to replace the arrest with a less restrictive preventive measure. The decision handed down today by the Supreme Court will be final.
Alexandru Toader is the son of former Justice Minister Tudorel Toader. Prosecutors from the office attached to the Iași Court of Appeal detained him on 23 October. The accusations formulated by investigators include rape, sexual assault, attempted sexual assault and use of office for sexual purposes, with multiple students of the institution as victims.
The document with the preventive arrest proposal describes the manner of operation of the defendant. Prosecutors from Iași maintain that the abuses began at approximately one year after Alexandru Toader obtained the position of lecturer.
A first incident documented by investigators dates from 8 November 2022. A 21-year-old student stated at hearings that she was summoned to the defendant's notary office, where she was a victim of rape. At a distance of one week, the same young woman was called to the professor's office within the faculty premises, where a second act of rape took place, according to evidence in the file. One week after this second incident, the student definitively abandoned her studies.
To consolidate the evidence, prosecutors authorised additional searches. In the evening of 27 October, Alexandru Toader was escorted from the Detention and Preventive Arrest Centre of the Iași Police to his notary office for these to be carried out.
Tudorel Toader, former Justice Minister, has taken up his son's defence. Following Alexandru Toader's detention, he published a message on Facebook in which he rejected the accusations and placed the prosecutors' action in a personal context. "It is an attack on me," wrote Tudorel Toader, suggesting that the true target of the case would be his own person.
If the Supreme Court rejects the challenge, Alexandru Toader will remain in preventive arrest for the period previously established by judges at the Iași Court of Appeal.
Source: Cotidianul.ro