Burning of Declaration of Independence is unjustifiably classified as “state secret”, IPN investigation

In the eve of the 21st anniversary of Independence, the burning of the Declaration of Independence remains one of the big mysteries of the time and the investigation of this case is classified as “state secret” even 3.5 years after the event. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo News Agency, State institutions in charge of investigating this event give some answers regarding the stage of the investigation on the burning of the Declaration. On the other hand, renowned specialists in the field say that the classification as state secret is unjustified and society had the right to know more about this matter of public interest. “Regarding your inquiry about the stage of the investigation of the burning of the Declaration of Independence of Moldova during the events on April 7, 2009, the press and public relations service of SIS is authorized to make the following comment: The results of the special investigation measures in the “April 7, 2009” file are classified as state secrets, according to art. 7.1.4 of Law no. 245 of 27.11.2008 regarding the state secret. Thereby, we inform you that the results of the investigation cannot be made public without the authorization of the person in charge of the investigation and only to the extent the investigator considers possible, by respecting the presumption of innocence and without harming the interests of other people or the process of investigation”, reads the official reply of the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS). The SIS press service declined to provide the name of the person “in charge of the investigation”, whom the Agency could ask questions, within the limits of the aforementioned law. A similar answer was given by the Prosecutor General’s Office. The matter caught the editor’s board attention also because of the interview offered for Kommersant.md by Communist MP and former counselor of President Vladimir Voronin during the events in April 2009, Mark Tkaciuk. He spoke about the dangers posed, according to him, by the Declaration of Independence to Moldovan statehood. “What makes us think the country is in danger and that Moldovan statehood can be abolished? It’s simple. On August 27, 1991, the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Afterwards, some forces claimed that Moldova wasn’t interested in settling the Transnistrian conflict and cited the text of the Declaration, saying that the Independence was declared only in relation to the USSR and it confirmed the theoretic possibility of uniting with Romania as the fulfillment of a historical truth (unofficial translation, Ed.)”, said the Communist MP. Mark Tkaciuk claims that the forces citing the text of the Declaration were mistaken, because in 1994 the Constitution was adopted and it didn’t contain these things anymore. “If you read the government program, adopted by the parliamentary majority, you’ll see a new issue, i.e. adopting a new Constitution. Nobody from the government alliance hides the fact that the Declaration of Independence was supposed to be a preamble to the new Constitution. This means giving up the Transnistrian region and forsaking the country’s statehood”, stressed Mark Tkaciuk. According to the MP, the Communists’ Party sees the situation in this light not because it is in opposition, but because it is the only party that created Moldova’s statehood and is more sensitive to such issues. Info-Prim Neo news agency asked the head of the parliamentary commission for investigating the causes and consequences of the events after April 5, 2009, Vitalie Nagacevschi to comment on the situation and to provide some additional information about the case, especially about the conditions in which the Declaration was kept until the fire. “As regarding the keeping and burning of the Declaration I know little, because this issue wasn’t the object of examination of the commission that was in charge of investigating the events of April 2009. The matter was to be and should be investigated by the Security and Intelligence Service and the Prosecutor General’s Office”, he said. As regarding the classification of the information about the destruction of the Declaration as a state secret, Vitalie Nagacevschi said that classifying the matter under the Law on state secret is improper. “At least, they could’ve referred to the secret of investigation, but by no means to the state secret”, said the lawyer. Besides, Vitalie Nagacevschi thinks that authorities don’t have the right to deny the public information about such a sensible subject, even invoking the investigation secret, because this secret isn’t absolute and it doesn’t cover all the information about the matter. With time, it won’t be topical anymore and it will lose its importance and will be ridiculed. “It’s obvious that in each criminal file there is some classified information, but there is also information that must be made public, especially when we are speaking about a matter of public interest. Thus, the authorities should provide information about the stage of the investigation: if there are any suspects, if not- what are the chances to find any suspects, if the Declaration was kept properly, if it wasn’t then who is to blame, which are the real prospects of the investigation, and so on. Moreover, as the time passes, the amount of information made public should grow”, considers the lawyer. Meanwhile, Vitalie Nagacevschi thinks that admitting the impossibility to identify those guilty of destroying the Declaration, and as a result, to finalize the criminal investigation would not be a problem, especially considering that in the circumstances the Declaration was burnt, it was very difficult if not impossible to identify those who did it. According to the lawyer, this case would end up in the category of unsolved cases. The text of the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, voted by the Parliament on August 27, 1991, was completely destroyed as a result of the burning of the Parliament and the Presidency buildings, which happened during the protests on April 7, 2009. For 3.5 years, investigations in different directions failed to uncover anything. [Mariana Galben, Info-Prim Neo]