In a new hearing in the case of ex-Premier Vlad Filat on April 15, the court accepted partially the list of witnesses for the defense. The prosecution says the defense witnesses anyway do not have close ties with the examined charges, while the defense considers the court does not offer the accused a fair trial and equal chances, IPN reports.
After the hearing, state prosecutor Adriana Betisor said the court accepted a part of the witnesses proposed by the defense and these witnesses will be summoned. “These witnesses have no connection with the examined claims. Not even those who were accepted by the court are somehow connected. I saw that a number of names from this list were already made public,” said Adriana Betisor. The prosecutor also said that by making this list public, the defense pursues a particular goal, but refused to specify.
Lawyer Igor Popa said the court accepted only 14 of the proposed witnesses. “In this situation, we cannot speak about equality. The prosecutors appeared with over 30 witnesses, while we will have only 14 witnesses. We found no plausible explanation in the reasoning. Another problem is that the defense will have to itself make sure that the witnesses come to the hearings, even if we asked the court to contribute. We will present an additional list of witnesses,” he stated.
The next hearing, where the witnesses for the defense will start to be questioned, was set for April 19, 10:30am.
Vlad Filat pleads not guilty. He was charged with influence peddling and passive corruption and faces 7 to 15 years in jail and ban on holding particular public posts.
