Republican Party leader investigated in a penal case

On Friday, January 5 the house of the People’s Republican Party leader, Nicolae Andronic, has been searched, sources of the Info-Prim Neo Agency report. Solicited by the agency’s reporter Andronic confirmed the fact that the law enforcement bodies entered his house, stating that a day before, on January 4, he has been interrogated on the basis of a criminal case open at the General Prosecutor Office. According to him, the public prosecutor office accuses him of the fact that he would have purloined via blackmail a sum of money from an individual person. The leader of PPR denied the accusations. Being a professional lawyer, he stated that, in a normal situation, he should be firstly summoned as a witness and only at another stage of the investigation he could be charged with an offence. He expressed his hope that the Court will be able to prove his innocence. “The accusations brought are aberrations, not resisting to critics, but I was ready for a situation of this type, keeping in mind what happens today in the country”, Andronic stated. He explains the pressure he is subject to by the recent elections in UTA Gagauzia, won by one of the PPR leaders, after the candidate supported by government party had been eliminated in the first poll. Andronic considers that it is also a case of intimidation before the general local elections coming soon. In this context, Nicolae Andronic asserts that his case is opening “another series of politicians whom the head of state opened penal cases. Communists party headed by Voronin attempts to eliminate its political opponents”, the PPR leader says. He also affirms that in Moldova there is “a group ruled by Voronin dealing with the elimination of political opponents”. From this group, he named several important officials representing law enforcement bodies Nicolae Andronic could only tell the Info-Prim Neo reporter the surname of the investigation officer representing the General Prosecutor Office and that the penal case has been based on materials that have been fabricated by the Ministry of Internal Affaires (MIA). Till the moment of transmitting the news, nobody answered at the telephones of the General prosecutor office and the MAI, available for press in such cases.