Iurie Parhomenco, who is accused in the case of the murder attempt on the leader of the Democratic Party Vlad Plahotniuc, was sentenced to five years and four months in closed-type jail by the Court of Chisinau in the evening of January 30, IPN reports.

After the hearing, prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases Tatiana Vidrashko said they will yet decide whether to challenge the sentence or not as they asked for a much harsher penalty - an almost twice longer imprisonment term.

Iurie Parhomenco is the first of the seven culprits who learned his sentence as he admitted his blame and asked for simplified proceedings. Parhomenco didn’t talk to the press, but his lawyer said they expected a more severe penalty.

Lawyer Iulian Casu told journalists that he didn’t discuss the possibility of appealing the sentence with his client as they do not yet have the motivated decision to see the arguments of the court in favor of such a judgment.

According to the law enforcers, in October 2016 an organized criminal group from Ukraine started to plan the murder of the Democratic leader Vlad Plahotniuc. The Ukrainian authorities informed the Moldovan law enforcement agencies that according to their information the group members intended to travel to Moldova to commit a murder by order. The target and the one who ordered the murder weren’t known then. A number of searches were later carried out and the suspects were arrested.

It was determined that the members of the criminal group acted on the instructions of Grigore Caramalac, who is known as “Bulgaru” in the criminal underworld.