The former director of the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) Vasile Botnari, who was accused of abuse of power in the case of the expulsion of seven Turkish teachers and managers of the network of Orizont Lyceums from Moldova, was convicted. The case was sent to court in February and was examined as a classified one. The sentence was given in July, but was classed as secret, IPN reports, quoting the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The PGO noted it asked the court that tried the case to declassify the content of the case and to allow the sentence to be made public, but no response has come yet.

On June 11, 2019, the European Court of Human Rights held that the Republic of Moldova violated the rights of the Turkish citizens and ordered that Moldova should pay by €25,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage to each of them.

A criminal case over abuse of power and misuse of authority against employees of the Interior Ministry’s Bureau of Migration and Asylum and the SIS was started at the beginning of last August. The case, which involved the former SIS director Vasile Botnari, was later sent to court. The charges against two former vice directors of the SIS and the head of the Bureau of Migration and Asylum were dropped.

This February, Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo said the whole operation was ordered, coordinated and conducted directly by the accused, who at that moment held the post of director of the SIS. “Even if it was determined that the actions taken by former deputies of the SIS director formally contain elements of the offense of which they were accused, it was established that these fulfilled the orders of their superior, not knowing then that they were illegal,” he stated.