Romanian authorities took mercenary leader Horațiu Potra into custody Thursday on charges of attempting to subvert the constitutional order, following allegations he had helped plan a violent coup during last December’s fraught election period.

Potra was extradited from Dubai, where he had been detained since Sept. 24 alongside his son Dorian and grandson amid an investigation of a plot to use force to install former ultranationalist presidential candidate Călin Georgescu in power.

“Romanian citizens Horațiu Potra, Alexandru Cosmin Potra and Dorian Potra have been brought onto national territory following the successful completion of the extradition procedure,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement.

Prosecutors formally charged Georgescu, Horațiu and Dorian and a group of alleged mercenaries on Sept. 16, accusing them of having planned to hijack a protest supporting Georgescu after the December 2024 cancellation of the first round of the presidential election.

The official stated the armed group had intended to provoke large-scale violence, which in turn would have justified overthrowing Romania’s constitutional order and transferring political power by force.

Georgescu, a NATO skeptic, had won the first round of the election in November 2024, but the Constitutional Court later annulled the contest over alleged irregularities and concerns of foreign interference. He was later barred from the May rerun amid further allegations of Russian involvement.

Horațiu Potra, 55, a dual Romanian-French national, spent five years in the French Foreign Legion, an elite military unit of the French army. He later served as a bodyguard to Qatar’s royal family before spending nearly three decades in Africa as a private security operative for political leaders and business figures. He met Georgescu at a horse ranch last December, after Georgescu asked him for “support” in the upcoming presidential election.

According to prosecutors, Georgescu and Potra met on Dec. 7, 2024, a day after the court annulled the election, to finalize their plans for the violent coup. On Dec. 8, Potra was arrested en route to Bucharest in a five-car convoy allegedly transporting armed men who intended to incite riots.

Georgescu and Potra have dismissed the allegations against them, while their supporters see the charges as politically motivated.

“Better to break the law and live than to obey the law and die,” Potra said in an interview with the Georgescu-friendly TV channel Realitatea Plus after he was indicted.