Romanian senator solicits drawing back Russia’s chairmanship of CoE Committee of Ministers

The Romanian senator Ilie Iliascu, the ex-political prisoner of the regime from Tiraspol, intends to solicit to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to withdraw Russia’s chairmanship of the Committee of CoE, which it holds since May 2006, as well as to suspend the right to vote of the Russian Federation. Ilascu made this declaration on Friday, June 16, in Chisinau, within a press conference. Ilascu said that he will ask this at PACE sitting, to be held on June 26-30, justifying that the Russian Federation is not complying with the decision of European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) regarding the release of two political prisoners who are still detained on the left bank of Nistru – Andrei Ivantoc and Tudor Petrov-Popa. More, Ilascu said, that the Russian Foreign minister Serghei Lavrov, the chairman of the Committee of Ministers, declared that Russia will not comply with the decision of ECHR, because it is a political one. This kind of declarations is an offence to CoE, Ilascu states. The senator solicited to the Parliament from Chisinau to submit, until June 26, a legal petition to the Russian Federation requesting to execute the decision of ECHR on releasing those 2 political prisoners so no one could say that Moldova is a state that did not respect this decision. “Until now, Moldova did absolutely nothing to set free those two prisoners”, Ilascu said. On the other hand, the senator referred to some declarations of PPCD leader, Iurie Rosca, which he qualified as “lies”, according to which the ex-minister of Defense, Valeriu Pasat plotted the assassination of Iurie Rosca after the elections from March 6, discussing about this with Ilascu. The senator said that, he met indeed with Pasat before the parliamentary elections and discussed about the situation from the Republic of Moldova, and Pasat proposed him to participate in some “black PR” actions against Vladimir Voronin and the Communists’ Party, but he refused. “No one said a word about assassination”, Ilascu underlined. In this context, Ilascu said that “Pasat’s file” is a farce. Pasat has a part of a victim of the communists’ regime, and after will be proposed as a candidate to presidency of the Republic of Moldova. Referring to the vote of PPCD on April 4, Ilascu, who previously was a member of this party, declared that the Christian-democrat leaders are easy to be politically and economically blackmailed, and the protests of PPCD in the spring of 2002 were actions aimed to impede Romania joining NATO. Ilie Ilascu together with another 5 citizens of the Republic of Moldova was imprisoned on June 2, 1992, being accused by the Transnistrian authorities of war crimes and terrorist acts. Ilascu, who was sentenced to death penalty, was set free in May 2001. He received the Romanian citizenship and is a senator of “Romania Mare” (Great Romania) Party.