Former Prime Minister Vlad Filat was acquitted in the case of money laundering. The judgement was passed by the Court of Chisinau City on May 7. The prosecutors announced that they will appeal the decision, IPN reports.
When issuing the sentence, the judges invoked the absence of elements that would constitute an offence. The reasoned decision is to be made public.
Making statements for the press, Vlad Filat said that he will examine the argued decision, but he believes that he is at the beginning of the road because in Moldova he hasn’t seen yet a situation in which an acquittal does not continue with a challenge from the Prosecutor’s Office, even if things are clear. He gave the example of the cases of Chirtoaca, Stoianoglo. Vlad Filat also said that he expected any development. “Beyond the fact that I’m, in a way, already invulnerable to all these situations, it goes to the family. A number of elements and surely this state of uncertainty at least don’t allow you to have a normal life,” he added.
Anticorruption prosecutor Nadejda Busuioc said that the reasons set out in the content of the full sentence will be analyzed. However, given that the prosecution considered the defendant Vladimir Filat guilty of committing the crime of money laundering and that there is sufficient evidence confirming the commission of the crime, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office will appeal the acquittal decision within 15 days.
According to a press release of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the criminal case was initiated in August 2015 by the National Anticorruption Center. In 2013, Vladimir Filat, while holding the position of chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM), being a public figure, knowing that through Ion Rusu, with whom he was in an affinity relationship, he owns financial means obtained illegally from Banca de Economii, in the total amount of 12 847 902 lei, converted and transferred the money through companies managed by Ion Rusu to the account of the nonresident company Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research LTD, for the payment of electoral consultancy services during the 2013 campaign, provided for the benefit of the PLDM.
The trial lasted for more than five years and the defendant denied any wrongdoing. The state prosecutors asked for eight years in prison for money laundering and the forced and free transfer to the state of the money that was the object of money laundering, in the amount of about 13 million lei.
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