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RISE investigative journalist: ”Kidnapping of people is a multiannual practice in Moldova”


https://www.ipn.md/en/rise-investigative-journalist-kidnapping-of-people-is-a-multiannual-practice-7967_1080991.html

On April 14, representatives of the law enforcement bodies of Moldova are expected to present reports on the circumstances of the April 3 kidnapping of ex-Ukrainian judge Nikolai Ceaus at the meeting of the Parliament’s commission on national security, defense and public order, IPN reports, quoting the Parliament’s press service.

According to the agenda of the meeting, reports will be presented by officials of the Security and Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

In a comment for IPN, Moldovan investigative journalist Vladimir Thorik said the law enforcement bodies of Moldova could identify a number of interesting things of social importance if they examine the circumstances of Ceaus’ arrival to Chisinau in 2016 and the persons who secured his stay in Moldova during four years.

Vladimir is a journalist of RISE Moldova, co-author of a series of international journalistic investigations into the influence exerted by foreign intelligence services on politicians from Moldova. At the end of March – the start of April this year, in cooperation with counterparts from Слiдство.инфо, the journalist published two investigations: on the evacuation of Ceaus from Kyiv to Chisinau in 2016 and on the entrance into Moldova of a group of Ukrainian citizens with passports under cover, who possibly kidnapped the judge in April 2021.

“The kidnapping of Ceaus represents the resumption of the special operation of 2016, when the judge from Kyiv could be evacuated to Chisinau with the participation of the military intelligence service of Ukraine, persons close to the then President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Moldovan oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc. The passivity of the Moldovan police in investigating high-level corruption and the use of the law enforcement bodies in the personal interest of politicians made Moldova become a transit place for foreign intelligence services that are used by corrupt politicians in the own interests,” stated Thorik.

The RISE journalist noted “the kidnapping of persons is a multiannual practice in Moldova”.

“Several years ago, I related how citizens of the Republic of Moldova are kidnapped in Chisinau and in other towns of the republic year by year and taken to the Transnistrian region. But no one of the Transnistrian administration was held accountable. Moreover, they continue to unrestrainedly use the Chisinau International Airport. Given the inexistence of a legal condemnation in the case of the previous kidnappings, the current occurrence when a group of persons take a foreign citizen this time in a unknown direction is not surprising,” stated Vladimir Thorik.

Several days ago, ex-minister of home affairs Alexandru Jizdan, in the talk show “Black Box” on TV8 channel, said that the members of the special parliamentary commission into the kidnapping of Ceaus aim to determine the circumstances in which Nikolai Ceaus arrived in Moldova in 2016.