A laboratory that will perform molecular genetic tests to determine paternity based on DNA samples, to identify victims of crimes or catastrophes was opened at the Forensic Medicine Center in Chisinau. The DNA will be examined at the request of law enforcement agencies and also of private individuals, either within or outside criminal cases. Each applicant will fully pay for the service individually, IPN reports.

The lab will start to provide services when it sets and calibrates its equipment and trains the personnel, in at most a year. It is to also obtain international accreditation so that the performed investigations are validated in any court and any state.

Minister of Health, Labor and Social Protection Svetlana Cebotari said Moldova needed such a lab to comply with the international standards and to perform reliable examinations both in the interests of the legal system and of the population.

Forensic Medicine Center director Valeri Savciuc said Moldova was the only CIS state that didn’t have such a laboratory. The law enforcement agencies had to use the services of foreign labs and to spend large sums of money for the purpose. The equipment of the Chisinau lab is internationally renowned. The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. and the Federal Security Service of Russia have similar equipment.

The outfit the laboratory, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection allocated about 9.3 million lei.