The Russian Federation was obliged by the European Court of Human Rights to pay about €90,000 damages to five Moldovan citizens. The High Court of Strasbourg ruled in favor of Stefan Mangir, Vitalie Vasiliev, Igor Datsko, Constantin Condrea and Alexandru Pohila, who in 2006 were arrested in the Transnistrian region while they were carrying out an investigation in Tiraspol as police officers. They complained to the ECHR that they didn’t have a fair trial and were held in unhuman and degrading conditions, IPN reports.

Alexandru Tanase, one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiffs, said that everything started in June 2006. At that time, Stefan Mangir, Vitalie Vasiliev, Igor Datsko, Constantin Condrea and Alexandru Pohila were police officers of the Republic of Moldova. On June 14, 2006, Mangir and Vasiliev were arrested by the secret services of the so-called Nistrean Moldovan Republic while they were conducting an investigation in Tiraspol. During the arrest, they contacted their colleagues of the Bender police station. Datsko, Condrea and Pohila travelled to the scene to see what was going on and were also arrested by the Transnistrian secret services.

The plaintiffs were later taken to the remand prison in Tiraspol. On June 17, 2006, Pohila, Datsko and Vasiliev were set free without a formal indictment and without receiving an explanation why they were arrested.

The situation was different in the case of Mangir. On June 18, 2006, this was beaten and was administered an unknown substance that kept him unconscious for four days. Later he was arrested for a 30-day period. When the period expired, both Mangir and Condrea were released. The letter filed by the plaintiffs shows they were held in inhuman conditions and were ill-treated during questioning and forced to declare that they were entrusted with the task of kidnapping politicians from the Transnistrian region.

According to lawyer Andrei Bivol, the ECHR held that the Republic of Moldova fulfilled its obligations concerning plaintiffs’ rights guaranteed by the Convention and that Russia is responsible for the violation of the rights of the plaintiffs. As a result, the Court obliged Russia to pay €25,000 damages to Mangir, €20,000 to Condrea and by €15,000 to the other three plaintiffs plus court costs.