Lawyer Ștefan Gligor said that when a person involved in a political case started by order finds oneself in front of a system in which all the branches of the state power are accomplices, the chance resides not only in the fair legal proceedings. “Yes, these are very important and should be conducted impeccably so as to leave a very small chance of maneuvering to the system. But the person’s chance resides in the public pressure, in the media coverage of the case and in the pressure exerted by the development partners on the state institutions, which are in reality subordinated to an organized criminal group,” the lawyer stated in the public debate “Political” criminal cases: protagonists, methods, goals, consequences” that was held by IPN News Agency.
Ștefan Gligor noted that when criminal cases are managed by order, there is a closed system – the investigation officer works with the prosecutor, while the prosecutor has very good relations with the judge of inquiry, who authorizes particular measures. “What does this mean? If someone is to be arrested or questioned, they work together with the judges of inquiry. When an instruction is given concerning an ordinary person without visibility or when society does not devote attention, it is hard to defend oneself,” stated the lawyer.
According to him, in the case of a raider attack, a case by order or a purely political case, only a scheme of three defense components can work – ensuring of the juridical part, which should be impeccable and in accordance with all the norms, attraction of the media so as to focalize the society’s attention on the committed illegalities, and attraction of the development partners’ attention to aspects related to this case. If it is a case of human rights violations or abuse in the work of the prosecution bodies or an embezzlement scheme or raider attack, results in a captured state can be achieved only if the three factors are combined.
The lawyer noted that in his career he worked with cases of raider attack orchestrated from behind by people who are broadly discussed at present. He made approaches to the prosecutor general, the director of the National Anticorruption Center, the Supreme Security Council and provided evidence of a raider attack, of property dispossession, but his approaches were ignored. “And you then realize that there is a system in front of you where there is no maneuvering space and where you can appeal to no one,” stated Ștefan Gligor, noting it is hard to obtain justice if the three elements of defense are not at the basis of the strategy and if society is not informed.
He also said that as a result of the schemes implemented in Moldova by organized international criminal groups, the state institutions were politicized and, to say it better, criminalized. All those criminalization actions that took place during consecutive decades generated costs that mean 10-12 years of failed progress, stability, democratization. “Respectively, in such conditions, the Republic of Moldova continues to stay in the 1990s or, in the best case, in 2000. As regards the financial losses generated by corruption and subduing of the state institutions by criminal groups, these rise to hundreds of billions of euros. If these losses hadn’t existed, the Republic of Moldova would have been another state, possibly a candidate for membership of the European Union,” stated Ștefan Gligor.
The debate “Political” criminal cases: protagonists, methods, goals, consequences” was the 140th installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture through public debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
