DA Party member Gheorghe Petic today was sentenced to 42 months in a minimum security prison and ordered to pay 30,000 lei ($1,740) after being found guilty by Orhei District Court of committing a sex offense in October.
Adrian Cojocaru, a lawyer for Petic, told reporters the sentence was ill-founded and would be appealed in Chisinau. The lawyer also said the imprisonment sentence would worsen even more his client’s deteriorating health. “The Rezina Prison doesn’t have a resident physician, only nurses and a paramedic, and the doctors that saw him earlier recommended that he be taken to a hospital to be diagnosed, but my client hasn’t been escorted to any medical institution yet”.
Gheorghe Petic’s wife Lilia believes his husband is innocent, telling reporters that she and the daughters will miss him very much. The woman added that she was able to see her husband the last time on February 27.
Footage released by TV8 showed a crowd outside the courtroom chanting “Free Gheorghe Petic!”. A number of protesters complained of being ill-treated by the police.
A former border police colonel, Petic gained the reputation of a whistleblower after exposing alleged cigarette smuggling schemes across the border with Romania. Last October, Petic, who became in the meantime an opposition politician, was arrested on rape charges. Petic pleaded not guilty, maintaining the case was politically motivated.
While in remand, Petic ran for Parliament on NOW’s ticket, but his position on the list wasn’t high enough to make him an MP.