Gennady Kuzmichev, former de facto interior minister of the unrecognized Transnistrian republic, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison on smuggling charges. He was also stripped of all distinctions and rank, and was ordered to pay a fine equivalent to $1,700.
Prior to his appointment as interior minister, Kuzmichev briefly served as the breakaway region’s customs chief. Now he was found guilty of organizing a scheme to facilitate passage of contraband goods in exchange for bribes.
Earlier Veaceslav Țurcan, a Chisinau-based lawyer hired by Kuzmichev, claimed that the former de facto minister had been abducted with the help of Moldovan police and illegally handed over to the Tiraspol regime, where he was being denied due process. Țurcan also said that his client’s health rapidly deteriorated in the infamous Transnistrian prisons and that private doctors hired by his family were unable to see him.