Bender investigator holding woman hostage is Moldovan national

The investigator in the case of Elena Dobrovitskaya, the young woman kidnapped by the Bender militsyia a couple of days ago, is a citizen of Moldova with residence in the village of Varnitsa. Given these circumstances, the mother of the hostage, Zinaida Ciuhnenko, and the human rights organization Promo-Lex request the General Prosecutor's Office to take action against the illegalities committed by the investigator, and petition other relevant Moldovan authorities for intervention to release the illegally detained woman, who is moreover believed to be pregnant. The 20-year-old woman was detained by the Transnistrian militsyia two days ago and is held hostage in a remand unit because her mother, Zinaida Ciuhnenko, had failed to appear before investigators when summoned. Zinaida Ciuhnenko told today a news conference at Info-Prim Neo that she couldn't make it to the militsyia station in Bender because she was receiving treatment at a health center in Chisinau. “I filed complaints with all the institutions in Transnistria, complaints with the militsyia, and now I've brought these complaints to Chisinau”, said Zinaida Ciuhnenko. She said she would have gone to Bender yesterday, the very minute she found about her daughter, hadn't she had a nervous breakdown that required urgent hospitalization. Promo-Lex chairman Ion Manole described the case as 'blackjacking' on the part of the Transnistrian militsyia and opined that Zinaida Ciuhnenko should not go home because she would be immediately detained alongside her daughter. Video footage was presented at the conference where Elena's mother was shown speaking on the phone with investigator Vladislav Romanovski. He is heard telling the woman in an aggressive tone that her daughter wouldn't have been detained had she complied with the summons. Doina Straisteanu, a lawyer with Promo-Lex, said the Moldovan Prosecutor General is obliged to react to the case, especially since the investigator is a Moldovan national. “The Prosecutor's Office should investigate on what grounds the investigator allowed himself to take hostages to ensure the continuation of the investigation”. The mother of the hostage recounted that in March 2009 she felt sick while driving and accidentally struck a car of the Bender militsyia. Since then she was thrice remanded in Bender for 72-hour periods, during which she lost consciousness several times because of the inhuman detention conditions.