A senior officer of the Prosecution Department of the Ministry of the Interior was convicted of passive corruption. The Chisinau Appeals Court sentenced him to three years and three months in jail and fined him 22,000 lei, banning him also from holding posts in the law enforcement bodies for a period of three years, IPN reports.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, in April 2012 the policeman asked for and received €1,500 from a man suspected of smuggling for not drawing up a report for putting him under arrest for 72 hours. After the police officer was charged, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office made an approach to the Ministry of the Interior, asking that the officer should be suspended from his post, but the request was rejected. The first court acquitted him a year ago, but the prosecutors challenged the decision and recently the Chisinau Appeals Court sentenced him to jail.

The decision is not yet final.