Amnesty International launches action to support mayor of Vorniceni

The International Secretariat of Amnesty International initiated an action to offer immediate support to the mayor of Vorniceni Gheorghe Ionel, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communiqué from Amnesty International Moldova. The organization calls on the people from everywhere (Amnesty International has offices in 150 countries) to send letters to Moldova’s Prosecutor General Valeriu Gurbulea, Minister of the Interior Gheorghe Papuc and ombudsman Anatolie Munteanu and express their concerns about the disappearance of Gheorghe Ionel. The signatories shall demand that the authorities immediately inform the lawyer and members of Gheorghe Ionel’s family where he is held, if he is in custody, and will ask the Prosecutor General to launch an impartial investigation into the alleged kidnapping of Gheorghe Ionel without delay. Gheorghe Ionel is the mayor of Vorniceni village of Straseni district and is a member of the Opposition party the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN). During the last two years, he had been arrested several times and accused of human trafficking and misuse of power in two cases. The party colleagues announced him missing on February 27, when the Straseni Court acquitted him in the second case and set him free. According to witnesses, after the court pronounced the judgment, masked officers of the Center for Combating Corruption and Economic Crime entered the courtroom and attacked the supporters of the mayor. The AMN supposes that the mayor of Vorniceni was kidnapped during the created chaos. The Center denies that Gheorghe Ionel is held in its detention isolator.