Mercenary Horațiu Potra is being brought to Romania on Thursday on a flight from Dubai, said judicial sources cited by news agencies.
His son, Dorian Potra, and another family member, Alexandru Potra, are also on the plane.
The three were internationally wanted after leaving Romania at the beginning of the year and were detained in the United Arab Emirates in September.
Romanian authorities initiated extradition procedures immediately after the detention, but the process would have taken much longer without a bilateral extradition agreement. Potra, however, agreed to return voluntarily to the country to participate in the process. "I am not hiding, and I have no reason to hide. I miss my family and want to be able to look the world in the eyes, knowing that I have chosen truth, not fear," he conveyed through his lawyers.
Attempted coup and formation of a paramilitary group
Horațiu Potra has been indicted by the Prosecutor General, along with Călin Georgescu and 20 other defendants, for offenses against the constitutional order, including attempted coup, violation of the weapons and ammunition regime, illegal operations with pyrotechnic materials, and public incitement. The Bucharest Court of Appeal upheld the arrest warrant in absentia on October 10.
According to investigators, Potra and his group of mercenaries planned to infiltrate the protests that erupted after the cancellation of the presidential elections in December 2024, with the intention of inciting violence and chaos.
The indictment shows that the plan was established on December 7, 2024, in a clandestine meeting at a farm in Ciolpani, between Georgescu and Potra.
Prosecutors claim that the latter formed a paramilitary group of 21 individuals, who were supposed to travel to Bucharest with seven vehicles armed with bladed weapons, telescopic batons, pyrotechnic materials, and other dangerous objects.
Police checkpoints set up on the night of December 7 to 8, 2024, led to the stopping of the vehicles and the confiscation of the arsenal, with prosecutors concluding that the group's actions endangered national security and constitutional order.