Court considers BCC member Vlad Turcanu was illegally detained by CCECC

Chisinau’s Buiucani District Court pronounced as illegal the actions of the Centre for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption (CCECC) concerning the detention of the member of the Broadcasting Coordination Council Vlad Turcanu on June 13, 2007. Vlad Turcanu told Info-Prim Neo that the court considered as illegal his arrest and of the daughter of the BCC deputy chair, Ludmila Vasilache, finding a series of procedure breaches. One of them was the fact that he was forcibly brought to the Centre. Only there was he told that he wasn’t a suspect but he would be detained for 1 or 2 hours for inquiries. Judge Mihai Drosu found that the law has been violated as there wasn’t issued any prior warrant which had to be presented at least 5 days before the arrest. Turcanu says that prosecutor Marcel Tumuruc, who represented CCECC in court, cited a new reason for the arrest, after the spokesperson of the Centre, Alexandru Gasca said shortly after the detention that Vlad Turcanu had been arrested for identification. In court, however, prosecutor Tumuruc said that Turcanu was arrested at the request of Ludmila Vasilache, who wanted him to come to the Centre to give her moral support. To ground the new version, the prosecutor said that the three arrested persons were transported in different cars and that they were placed in three different offices at the Centre. Vlad Turcanu said that together with lawyer Vitalie Nagacevschi they will sue CCECC to recover the non-pecuniary damages caused to him. In mid June, CCECC announced in a press release that it started penal proceedings against BCC member Ruslan Plesca as he has allegedly asked a significant bribe from the director of a broadcasting institution. After the testimony brought by BCC members Ludmila Vasilache and Valeriu Soltan, the employees of the Centre charged them of complicity. Vlad Turcanu and Ludmila Vasilache told a news conference that they were arrested by CCECC because of their activity within the BCC and the decisions that have been made at their proposals lately. Later, the media NGOs warned in a public statement that CCECC could become a tool of pressure on BCC. Also, the Anticorruption Alliance, composed of a number of NGOs said they are concerned about the violations found by the media NGOs and the lawyers of those three BCC members.