Romania drops case against military prosecutor Pîrlog after six years
The investigation into alleged abuse of office and forgery over travel expenses has ended without charges. Pîrlog says the case was politically motivated.
Symbolic image · Photo: Ștefan Jurcă from Munich, Germany / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
The prosecutor's office at the Bucharest Court of Appeal has dropped all charges in its criminal case against military prosecutor Bogdan Pîrlog, the news site HotNews reported. The grounds given were that the act "does not exist" or is not a criminal offense. Pîrlog works at the prosecutor's office of the Bucharest Military Tribunal, previously headed the capital's military prosecutor's office and chairs the association "Initiative for Justice." HotNews describes him as one of the most outspoken prosecutors in the country.
The investigation was opened ex officio in 2020 by the now-dissolved special unit for investigating magistrates (SIIJ). It concerned travel expense claims from 2019 for domestic and foreign trips. The allegations were abuse of office, false certification, use of forged documents and fraud. In 2024, Pîrlog was notified that he was a suspect. In March 2026, he applied for the post of prosecutor general but was not selected.
Pîrlog denies the allegations and says every trip was official and approved. He claims the investigation stemmed from backroom arrangements at the Justice Ministry involving former minister Alina Gorghiu and former prosecutor general Alex Florența. Both rejected those claims in 2024. The Judicial Inspection has opened 22 disciplinary proceedings against Pîrlog in recent years, two of which are still pending before the High Court of Cassation and Justice.