The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (APO) ordered not to take legal action over the press reports concerning the selling of the post of prosecutor general in 2009 for 2 €million as there are no elements of active and passive corruption. An order to this effect was made in the middle of January.

In a response to IPN, the APO said there was identified no evidence that would have generated reasonable suspicions about the commission of such offenses. All the suspected persons were questioned so as to collect information about the object of the investigation, but the fact of corruption could not be confirmed.

The APO’s decision can be challenged in a hierarchical order with the anticorruption prosecutor and then with the judge of inquiry.

MP of the ACUM Bloc, of the Action and Solidarity Party, Radu Marian in the middle of last December filed an application to the APO, asking to verify the information about the selling of the post of prosecutor general in 2009. Shortly afterward, the APO started a criminal case.

Contacted by IPN for comments, Radu Marian said the APO’s decision generates suspicions. “It is not clear who they questioned, but the then key protagonist, currently fugitive Vlad Plahotniuc, most probably wasn’t questioned. How can the criminal case be dropped without questioning the main suspect? This is an at least superficial approach,” he stated, noting he will make a new approach and will ask for the list of those who were questioned in this case and will later dispute the decision according to procedures.

Radu Marian made inquiries to the APO after former Premier Vlad Filat in an interview for a TV channel last July said the post of prosecutor general was sold for 2 €million by former leader of the Our Moldova Alliance Serafim Urechean to Vlad Plahotniuc. Then, on October 7, 2009, Valeriu Zubco was named prosecutor general.