Story By: Sergiu Nazaru, Sub Editor:  Joseph Golder,  Agency: Newsflash

A family who claims to be from the ancient kingdom of Thracia are planning legal action after saying they were beaten and abused when they tried to force their way across the border from Hungary into Romania.

The family attracted the attention of border control officers when they turned up at the Nadlac II Border Crossing Point, in western Romania’s Arad county, with unofficial identity documents as well as with a car that was no longer authorised for use on the road.

Its original number plates had been removed, and instead, new plates with the words ‘Kokkino Spusili’ have been put in their place when it was stopped on 1st November.

Thracia is the ancient name given to the south-eastern Balkan region which was inhabited by Thracians from the 5th to 1st centuries BC when it was then conquered by the Romans and became a Roman province.

The man who was driving who told the border guards he was Thracian said he did not recognise the need for a passport. As a result, he was removed from the car and wrestled to the ground by cops when he insisted on being allowed to continue.

The driver, who calls himself Kokkinos Pusili on his social media account, said in a video after the incident: ‘If you have a different faith than the Romanian state, you are considered crazy. […] I want to make the complaint internationally because internally it is governed by a vile law. When I asked them about the law, they did not answer.’

He added: “They pulled me out of the car, put my knee on my head like in the case of that black man.

He also said that the border police is an illegal operation that has no foundation in law.

In an official communique, the spokesman of the Arad Border Police, Filip Ionut Matei, declared that “the authorities from the Nadlac II – Csanadpalota Border Crossing Point found five Romanian citizens who presented control documents not recognized by the Romanian state at the border and who were travelling by a car removed from circulation.”

He added: “The five are Romanian citizens, two adults, aged 31 and 35, and three minors, aged between 7 months and 8 years. After establishing their identity, the necessary procedure to allow the entry into Romania and the continuation of the trip, the border police allowed the Romanian citizens to enter the country.”

The same source informed that: “During the verifications, the adults refused to cooperate with the Hungarian authorities to establish their identity . . . because the driver was aggressive, he was immobilized by Hungarian police officers.”

The border police officers are investigating the family for attempted illegal crossing of the state border, false identity, driving an unregistered vehicle with false registration numbers and improper participation in the attempted fraudulent crossing of the state border.

Thracians are considered as the ancestors of the Romanians after they became part of the greater Roman Empire which was to later settle in Romania.

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