Ambulances Case finally ends after nearly five years

The Supreme Court of Justice on Wednesday dismissed as inadmissible the appeal of the General Prosecutor's Office in the so called 'Ambulances Case', thus putting and end to it and definitively clearing ex-Chisinau mayor Serafim Urecheanu of fraud charges, after more than four and a half years of trials. The Prosecutor's Office challenged the judgment of the Chisinau Courts of Appeal, which upheld a previous decision to acquit Urecheanu, currently the leader of the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) Party. “This decision puts an end to the outlawry perpetrated by Voronin (e.n.: President Vladimir Voronin) and Gurbulea (e.n.: General Prosecutor Valeriu Gurbulea). Being dragged through courts more than 50 times in four years and seven months, I've lived 1,672 days of abuse under comrade Voronin's Communist regime ”, Urecheanu told Info-Prim Neo. The AMN leader said that his case is an indicator of how people are being treated by the Moldovan judicial system. He added that the case will have a follow-up at the European Court of Human Rights, where he will seek redress. “The application has been accepted and I've been assured by my lawyers in Strasbourg that a decision will be delivered on the case by April 5”, when legislative elections are due to take place in Moldova, said Urecheanu. Proceedings against Urecheanu, in what later grew to become the Ambulances Case, were initiated on June 30, 2004. The former mayor was accused of engaging in a fraudulent scheme when the municipality purchased 40 Volkswagen vans for conversion into ambulances. Serafim Urecheanu has repeatedly declared that the charges were trumped up at President Voronin's order. On May 26, 2008, Urecheanu was acquitted by the Centru District Court, but in September, the General Prosecutor's Office challenged that judgment in the appellate court. Urecheanu's application was lodged with the Strasbourg Court in December 2006, after a lower court re-started proceedings against the former mayor, despite the Supreme Court's order to end them.