President Maia Sandu said that as a result of today’s meeting of the Supreme Security Council (SSC), she saw the inefficiency of the prosecution bodies in relation to the measures taken to prevent the risk of the involved persons avoiding legal responsibility in cases of grand corruption. She expressed her concern about the lack of progress in investigating cases of grand corruption, noting conditions should be created for making headway, including by improving the legal framework, IPN reports.
In a news conference after the Council’s meeting, Maia Sandu said that in the meeting they discussed all the measures taken by the responsible authorities to prevent the persons involved in grand corruption from fleeing the country. All the prosecutor’s offices were invited, but only a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office came.
According to President Sandu, a number of persons involved in abuses, illegalities, grand corruption left the Republic of Moldova and are wanted. The prosecution service does not take the necessary steps to bring back and hold these persons accountable.
Vlad Plahotniuc was the first to flee the country in 2019, when the regime of Plahotniuc that held the prosecution service hostage was removed. Besides Plahotniuc, Sergey Yaralov, Ilan Shor, Constantin Botnari also left the country. Other persons of the “Plahotniuc group” remained in the country, but left recently, including Vladimir Andronachi and Gheorghe Cavcaliuc.
According to Maia Sandu, there is one more group that includes persons involved in abuses and against which criminal cases were started. “We saw that Platon left and we know that there is a long list of persons who form part of a group or another, who can leave the country as the prosecutor’s office didn’t impose bans on them,” said the official, noting the representatives of the prosecution service argue the procedures prevent them from taking measures to restrict the movement of persons, but the same procedures seem to allow them to arrest businesspeople, teachers and others.
President Sandu noted that in the discussions, concerns were formulated about the fact that the reported fraudulent transactions are not investigated by prosecutors till the end. “The object of the offense is therefore a big problem. It is hard to recover the stolen money and property that remain at these persons’ disposal”.
SSC formulated a number of recommendations for the prosecution bodies. “These are recommendations concerning risk assessment, assessment of the work of prosecutors who deal with cases of grand corruption and of the efficiency of prosecutors. The recommendations will be made public later today. The legal framework needs to be amended. The amendments will be discussed with the Ministry of Justice and will be submitted to Parliament, if they are necessary, so as to improve the legal framework and the activity of the prosecution service,” stated Maia Sandu.
