(Adnkronos) – Former mercenary and bodyguard of Calin Georgescu, Horatiu Potra, was arrested yesterday in the town of Ilfov, north of Bucharest, together with a group of 20 men, with whom he was traveling, armed to the teeth, to reach the capital. A court this morning confirmed his detention for another 24 hours on charges of violating gun laws and for actions against public order and peace. Police found guns, machetes, axes and knives on the convoy of cars of Potra and his men.
Georgescu, who had asked his supporters to show up at the polls for the vote anyway, took to the streets in Bucharest yesterday in Bucharest with dozens of other people to protest the Court’s decision. Potra, who was in the Foreign Legion, and commanded a unit of 900 Romanian mercenaries in Congo, had booked hotel rooms in his and his men’s names in Bucharest, near University Square, where a large pro-European rally took place on Thursday evening.
Potra allegedly has ties to Wagner. In a photo from last year, he is with the Russian ambassador to Romania Valery Kuzmin, on the occasion of the National Day, last year, at the embassy. In 2011 he was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended, for creating a paramilitary group.
On Friday, the Constitutional Court annulled, due to interference by Russia, the electoral process for the presidential elections. Georgescu, a candidate with far-right and pro-Russian positions, had surprisingly won the most votes in the first round.
