Former prosecutor of Chisinau municipality Ivan Diacov said the incumbent prosecutor general Eduard Harunjen was named to this post after he was insistently promoted to the post of chief prosecutor of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.

In a posting on a social networking site, Ivan Diacov wrote that a contest to fill the post of chief prosecutor of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office was announced in 2013. Prosecutors Ruslan Popov and Eduard Harunjen went through to the second stage. The Superior Council of Prosecutors that consisted then of 11 members chose Ruslan Popov by six votes to five. The decision was yet annulled on the pretext that the Council was to elect the candidate by seven votes to four.

He advised then Ruslan Popov not to take part in the rerun contest as it was clear that he wasn’t wanted and that Harunjen was promoted. “When Popov applied again, the prosecutor general started a criminal case against him and he was removed from the contest,” wrote Ivan Diacov.

According to the ex-prosecutor of Chisinau municipality, he was entrusted with the task of conducing the prosecution, but the case was dropped because there were no components of an offense. “This is how Harunjen became chief anticorruption prosecutor. The bank fraud followed under the surveillance of…Harunjen.”