A citizen of the Republic of Moldova, who lives on the left side of the Nistru and runs a small business in the transport sector, owning two trucks, has been investigated for five months and his activity was blocked, said his lawyer Mihail Boiștean. According to the lawyer, it is a fabricated criminal case. In a news conference at IPN, Mihail Boiștean said the persecution of an innocent person is not something new in the Republic of Moldova. But something like this in a state with the rule of law cannot be tolerated. The social importance is considerable because anyone can find oneself in such a situation.
The lawyer related that at the start of this year, his client Andrei Potrîmba transported a truck of apples to the Russian Federation. All the documents were made in accordance with the law. There are only civil relations between his client and the person to whom he entrusted the transportation of apples (alleged injured party in this case). Even if particular misunderstandings appeared, these were to be solved by a civil lawsuit. But criminal proceedings were instituted over appropriation and the case is handled by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases, not by the court close to the domicile of the alleged injured party.
In the ordinary court of law, the prosecutor asked to impose a preventive measure in the form of arrest, but the judge ordered to set his client free, imposing a freedom non-privative measure on him. The upper court, the Appeals Court, to which an appeal was filed, issued a warrant for his arrest yet. “There was no objective examination of the case. False statements were made and we can prove this. The procedures were violated when my client was indicted. All the violations were documented by us, appealed on time, but we haven’t achieved any result yet,” said Mihail Boiștean.
He noted that his client is prosecuted without any evidence and reason. He is now at home. As the territory on the left side of the Nistru is not controlled by the constitutional authorities, the prosecutors didn’t arrest him. This saved him from the abuses of the prosecution, but he cannot work and cannot run his business.
According to Mihail Boiștean, one more criminal case was started based on the same article, but on a different paragraph, invoking the same circumstances. The case is dealt with by the same prosecutor. Double pressure is thus exerted on his client. If the first case is dropped, the second will remain. Pressure started to be exerted when his client refused to make calumnious statements about another participant in this criminal case.
The accused man’s father Nicolai Potrîmba told the same news conference that their business is not big, but is a source of income for their family. He is sure that the criminal proceedings were instituted by order. Even if the prosecutor general says on TV that cases by order are no longer started, the situation is different. He called on the superior bodies of the Prosecutor General’s Office to take his son’s case under control so that a legal ending is reached.
The news conference forms part of the series of conferences held in the framework of IPN’s project “Injustice Revealed through Multimedia”. The project’s partner is the Lawyers Union of Moldova. IPN Agency does not assume the right to decide if the organizers of news conferences are right in the cases about which they will speak as this is the exclusive prerogative of justice, but the exaggeratedly long examination period of these cases, which is much longer than the law allows, can be considered an act of evident unfairness and injustice. IPN News Agency does not bear responsibility for the public statements made in the public sphere by the organizers of news conferences.
