Commission of inquiry says April 7 events did not represent a coup attempt
No coup was attempted on April 7, 2009, but the protests were determined by the problems existing in the county before April 5. The police did not intervene in time, the prosecutors and judges acted illegally and no traces of involvement of foreigners in the protests were identified. These are some of the conclusions contained in the report of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the April 7, 2009 events that was presented at the May 7 sitting of the Parliament. A decision based on the conclusions and recommendations of the report is to be taken at one of the next sittings, Info-Prim Neo reports.
Before presenting the report, the commission's chairman Vitalie Nagacevschi said it is not right when it is said that the report is made public one year after those events as the commission was set up on October 20, 2009 and was furnished with office equipment only at the start of this year.
“The report cannot be regarded as a verdict. It contains a number of recommendations for the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of the Interior and the Supreme Council of Magistrates, which are to investigate certain circumstances and persons who were questioned by the commission more thoroughly,” Vitalie Nagacevschi said.
The commission examined the pre-electoral context and pointed out a number of problems – the utilization of administrative resources in the electoral campaign, the imperfection of the legislation, the fact that the members of the Central Election Commission accused each other of being politically biased and did not react to violations committed by certain electoral contenders.
Vitalie Nagacevschi said that the former police commissioner of Chisinau Vladimir Botnari, former deputy commissioner Iacob Gumenita, former prosecutor general Valeriu Gurbulrea and other officials were near the Great National Assembly Square on April 6 in the evening, but did nothing to prevent the protests. Speaking about the leaders of the then Opposition, who had been authorized to stage protests, Vitalie Nagacevschi said there were a lot of people in Chisinau's central square and nobody could control the crowd.
“It is not clear why the police officers at 20.00 were ordered to leave the Parliament, while the firefighters did not start to put out the fire that broke out in the building,” he said.
Also, a number of judges committed serious violations as they tried young people inside police stations.
The commission questioned 82 persons. Former head of state Vladimir Voronin refused to give testimony, while judge Dorin Popovici did not appear before the commission.
In the end, Vitalie Nagacevschi said the report was approved only by the members of the commission that form part of the Alliance for European Integration, while the Communist MPs expressed a separate position. The Opposition accused the commission of being not objective and said the present administration was involved in the organization of the protests.
Vitalie Nagacevschi denied the accusations, saying that if politicians had been involved in those events, they would have been held accountable as the PCRM governed the country for four more months after the protests.