Story By: Lee Bullen, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: CEN

Video Credit: CEN/@AlexandruKocsisCristea

This is the moment dozens of burly cabbies with baseball bats and a machete pummel a passenger returning home from his birthday after the hapless partygoer “slammed the boot hard”.

According to local media, the young man, identified as Robert Zaharia, was unknowingly driven to a car park by the offended cabbie where dozens of colleagues were waiting to pummel him.

The incident caused outrage in Romania. Reports said that Zaharia was celebrating his birthday when he decided to take a cab home afterwards.

Pictures Credit: CEN

However, he became embroiled in a row with the taxi driver after ‘slamming the boot too hard’.

The cabbie reportedly called his colleagues who then assembled at a car park.

The men, apparently wielding sticks and baseball bats, brutally beat the passenger and one of them is even seen with what appears to be a machete.

According to local media, Zaharia was hospitalised with severe injuries for 18 days.

He told reporters that he suffered “a broken jaw, a kind of internal eye haemorrhage, bruises all over my legs and abdomen, and my back hurts terribly”.

The victim also claimed that one of the cabbies stole his mobile phone.

Explaining the initial argument with the offended taxi driver, Zaharia said: “I had a large speaker with me that would not fit into the boot so I told him I would put it in the car.

“He disagreed and I said ‘okay, leave me here and I’ll find another cab’. I slammed the boot hard and he suddenly became very aggressive and claimed that I ruined his car.

Reports said that the police are currently investigating the alleged assault and have arrested five suspects identified from the footage.

Vasile Stefanescu, the president of the Confederation of Authorised Operators and Carriers in Romania (COTAR), told local media: “These individuals are a blight on our confederation and society as a whole. They will have their taxi licences taken away and will not work for us again.

“Our guild is made up of 110,000 people and we cannot have our reputation tarnished because of such people.

“I cannot for the life of me understand what they were doing with baseball bats in the boot.

“I said from the beginning, if they really had a problem they should have called the police. It is not normal what happened.”

The investigation is ongoing.