The leader of the “Building Europe at Home” Party (PACE) Gheorghe Cavcaliuc was arrested at the Sheremetyevo Airport. At least this is what members of the party stated in the morning of July 4. They expressed their profound indignation at the created uncertain situation and asked for immediate reactions from all the responsible institutions, IPN reports.

According to a PACE member, Gheorghe Cavcaliuc, together with the head of the party’s Chisinau local organization Alexandru Cârpă and the vice president in charge of the diaspora Valentina Geamănă, was to have a meeting with the Moldovan diaspora in St Petersburg at 6pm.

The PACE members also said that they sent an official letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration and Moldova’s Embassy in the Russian Federation by which they informed about the event and asked for information about the method of entering Russia, but didn’t get a response.

PACE candidate for MP Margareta Răducan said all the three did a test for COVID-19 and had been vaccinated against COVID-19. At 6am, without any prior notice, only the three members of the party, out of all the passengers on the plane, were arrested. Gheorge Cavcalic was taken in an unknown direction for being questioned by persons in uniform. The other two members of the party remained in the halls of the airport. They know nothing about the life and safety of Gheorghe Cavcaliuc. Valentina Geamănă and Alexandru Cârpă were deprived of papers and were threatened to be sent back to Moldova.

PACE candidate Alexandru Grumeza said that in the nearest future they will transmit official messages to Russia’s Embassy in Moldova, Moldova’s Embassy in Russia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central Election Commission (CEC ), the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Moldova, Promo-LEX and the OSCE.

He announced they will mount protests at the head offices of the Party of Communists, the Party of Socialists, the Bloc “Renato Usatîi”, the Embassy of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the CEC. “We will protest until our leader Gheorghe Cavcaliuc is set free,” he stated.

Live-streaming from the airport, Gheorghe Cavcaliuc said that after they landed in Moscow as they were to meet with the members of diaspora, at the airport he and his mates witnessed weird things. “At the checkpoint t, they took my papers and said that I was be subject to an additional check,” he stated.

PACE considers the political opponents of the party, who are afraid of the high ratings of Cavcaliuc and PACE, are behind this incident.