Aurelian Szanto, a Romanian living in the UK, who apparently helped the Sky News journalists make the feature about the alleged gun dealers in Romania, claims he has been tricked into this by the Sky News team, who told him they were filming a documentary that would be presented as fiction.

On Sunday, August 6, Sky News published a story about alleged gun dealers in Romania who would sell illegal weapons to any buyer, including terrorists. A Sky News reporter said he met with two such arms traffickers and even showed a video filmed during the meeting. According to Romania’s anti-organized crime chief prosecutor, the video seems to be based on fictitious script.

Aurelian Szanto was questioned by Romania’s Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) on Wednesday, August 10. After the hearings, he told the Romanian media how the whole Sky News deal unfolded.

“I have been contacted through someone who had contacts at the Sky media group who asked me if I was willing to film a documentary in Romania about the arms trafficking that goes on in Easter Europe. The person told me that it was a documentary about arms trafficking that Sky made in Europe to inform the population. They told me: ‘we want two people who present us some weapons. By presenting those weapons we want to signal how these transactions take place.’ I had a friend who I knew had hunting weapons and I contacted him by phone and asked him if he agreed to make this documentary, which was not free, of course. He was supposed to get paid for acting and presenting the weapons and I was going to get paid for acting as a translator,” Aurelian Szanto said, according to Mediafax.

He emphasized the fact that he was told the movie was a documentary and that at the end of it the producers would announce that the characters were fictitious.

“They asked me to present war weapons. I told them I couldn’t do that. They assured me that it was a documentary and that it would be aired in December,” Szanto said. He even claims that the Sky News people assured him that they wouldn’t make a news of this that would damage Romania’s image in any way.

The Sky News journalists got to Targu Mures on July 29 guided by Aurelian Szanto, according to the Romanian investigators who are in charge with this case.

Szanto claims that the whole action in the Sky News feature was based on a scenario that he was given at the hotel in Romania.

“In order to make this documentary seem more real we have been asked that the extras wear masks and military clothes. I thought this was a matter of presentation,” the Romanian says.

He claims that he got all the guidance from his contact person from Sky. He says he also met with Stuart Ramsay, the journalist who made the feature, but that he didn’t talk to him. “I talked to his people. He didn’t talk to me. I’ve been around him in this period. They had a team of four journalists. What Stuart’s team discussed at the hotel, they passed to my friend who would pass it to me. When they gave me the questions they also gave me the answers and assured me that they were all for information purposes. They told me they wanted to make the filming in a secluded spot and that they would say it’s somewhere at the Ukrainian border,” Aurelian Szanto told the Romanian journalists.

He added that he regretted being tricked this way and that he was considering filing a complaint against the British journalists.

Szanto’s collaborators, the alleged gun dealers in the Sky News piece, were also called in for hearings by the DIICOT.

The Romanian investigators also found the car that appears in the video in a village in Bistrita county. It belongs to a local hunter who lent it to a friend. The car owner was also called for hearings.

Stuart Ramsay, the Sky News correspondent who made the video, claims the story is real and that the Romanian authorities are trying to cover it up. "Ha! Calm down everyone. Story is true. Nobody paid. Nobody scripted. Weapons real. Arrests happening. Govt embarrassed. Deal with it," Ramsay wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Sky News continue to back its chief correspondent. “Stuart Ramsay is one of our most experienced and tenacious journalists with a long history of delivering major stories from around the world. He’s delivered a robust report on gun-dealing in Romania and Sky News fully stands by the story,” a Sky spokesperson said on Wednesday, according to The Guardian.

Romanian Police: Guns presented in Sky News video are hunting weapons

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Aurelian Szanto on Facebook)