Gabriel Oprea (; born 1 January 1961) is a Romanian politician and a general in the army reserves. The former president of the National Union for the Progress of Romania (UNPR) and a former member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) who is now an independent, he was a member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Ilfov County from 2004 to 2012 and was a Senator for Bucharest from 2012 to 2016. In the Adrian Năstase cabinet, he was Minister-Delegate for Public Administration from June 2003 to July 2004; in the Emil Boc cabinet, he was Minister of Administration and Interior from December 2008 to January 2009; again under Boc and continuing under Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, he was Defence Minister (December 2009–May 2012); and in the Victor Ponta cabinet, served as deputy Prime Minister from December 2012, additionally holding the Interior portfolio from January 2014. From June to July 2015, and again from late July into August, he was interim Prime Minister of Romania. That November, he left the government after Ponta's resignation. Biography Early life and military career He was born in Fundulea, Călărași County and in 1980 entered the Active Officers' Military School in Sibiu, graduating as an officer in 1983. Following Law studies at the University of Bucharest from 1985 to 1990, he qualified as a lawyer, in 2000 obtaining a Law doctorate from the same institution. He also finished a course in national security at the Carol I National Defence University in 1997. In 2001, he was a professor at the latter school; he served as thesis adviser at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza Police Academy in 2002 and has been both professor and thesis adviser at the National Academy of Intelligence since 2008. He has also authored and co-authored a number of books and chapters since 2001. He and his wife Sanda have a daughter and a son. In 2015, an allegation of plagiarism was lodged against Oprea with regard to his thesis; he responded that the source of the complaint was an individual he had fired and who was pursuing a vendetta. A national ethics council unanimously found no evidence of plagiarism. Meanwhile, the head of Bucharest University's ethics committee, speaking in a personal capacity, charged that dozens of pages from the thesis were indeed plagiarized. Oprea's party responded by accusing him of defamation and threatening a lawsuit. Additionally, journalists asserted that three doctoral