The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) completed the investigation and sent to court the criminal case started against the former head of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (APO) Viorel Morari over abuse of power, falsification of public documents and interference in the criminal investigation procedures, IPN reports.
In a news conference, Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo said that at the end of December 2016, the former APO chief personally accepted from Vlad Plahotniuc a complaint dated December 26, 2016, by which the former Democratic leader asked to hold accountable Veaceslav Platon for a calumnious denouncement submitted to the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) of Romania. The complaint was brought to the APO by Viorel Morari, who yet forgot about the denouncement until March 2017, when he ordered that the complaint should be examined by an inferior prosecutor. Morari ordered the prosecutor to start a criminal case against Veaceslav Platon for calumnious denouncement with a date from before and to draft the ordinance to set up the investigation group.
As a result, all the complaints and statements submitted earlier and later by Veaceslav Platon against Plahotniuc were classed by the APO as false and calumnious without verifying the facts described by this. The case started by DIICOT Romania based on the denouncement of Veaceslav Platon, by which this asked to hold Plahotniuc and other persons accountable for a series of particularly serious offenses, had the same fate. The offenses included swindle, blackmail, money laundering, illegal takeover of shares in Moldovan banks and commercial organizations, such as “Victoriabank”, “Banca de Economii”, “Asito”, “Victoria Asigurări” and “Alfa Engineering”.
According to Alexandr Stoianoglo, the actions were taken by the APO chief with the aim of preserving the political support and protectorate offered to him by the former Democratic leader who was in a conflict with Veaceslav Platon. Even if the APO possessed information about the involvement of Vlad Plahotniuc and persons close to him in the bank fraud since the autumn of 2016, Plahotniuc was never questioned as a person suspected of being involved in this crime, being protected and allowed to leave the country unrestrictedly in the summer of 2019.
Within this criminal case, the former prosecutor general and one of the former inferiors of the accused were questioned as witnesses as their actions could not be classed as being committed out of financial or other persons interests.
Viorel Morari is in remand detention and prospectors will today ask the court to extend the detention period for another 30 days.
